Welcome to New York

Ferrara's Welcome to New York is a savage work that's easily one of the best films of the year. [Unrated Version]

As a portrait of a privileged, narcissistic sex addict, its magnificence and messiness are intertwined, while Gérard Depardieu’s (literally) naked performance offers a gurning, grunting bedfellow to Keitel’s Bad Lieutenant and Brando’s butterfat Last Tango In Paris protagonist.

This frank, unruly look at sex, privilege and power unfolds so much like real life that it proves an intriguing and strangely immersive experience.

The film, a sleek and oddly moving study in the cost of debauchery, has its gleeful excesses.

No matter its silliest missteps, Welcome to New York has an impressive engine of ideas in line with the director's other New York stories. [Unrated Version]

This is not the kind of material for a stately biopic or a political drama. This is nasty, strange business — perfect for Ferrara, whose work often hovers between art and exploitation, between angst and sleaze.

Grunting and boarlike, Gérard Depardieu supplies a one-note rendition of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Abel Ferrara’s peculiarly unilluminating Welcome to New York.