66
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 85TheWrapTodd GilchristTheWrapTodd GilchristHoward’s film is a love letter to the icon, but ultimately Pavarotti is a more of a celebration of the individual behind that façade and a reminder that it’s as much his humanity as his talent that made him a star.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleWith Pavarotti, director Ron Howard serves up a straightforward documentary about the great tenor’s life and career. It’s just a birth-to-death saga, featuring interviews with colleagues and loved ones and a catalogue of greatest hits, so nothing fancy here. But if you can find a better way to spend two hours, take it — I’ll stick with this.
- 70Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonEven for opera neophytes who couldn’t tell a soprano from a tenor, Ron Howard’s brisk, engaging film capably maps out an art form that Luciano Pavarotti ruled for decades, including enough technical insight to go along with an overview of the maestro’s personal and professional highlights.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyIntelligent, vastly appreciative of its subject and conventional in approach, Pavarotti can scarcely go wrong due to the charisma of its subject, the gorgeous music that wallpapers the entire film and an arc of success arguably unmatched in the opera world. If the film is all but engorged with goodies, one can hardly object that this is in some way inappropriate to it subject.
- 70VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanThe genius of Pavarotti’s voice is that it had the power to heal. The movie pays ample testament to how that voice, for 40 years, poured out of him, rapturous and tragic, soaring on wings of pure emotion, at times wracked with a spiritual pain that was surely his own, but always lifting his audience to the mountaintop of beauty, saying, “This is where I live. And you can too.”
- 60The New York TimesKen JaworowskiThe New York TimesKen JaworowskiThis is a film too enamored of its subject to pry very deeply. And yet, it’s hard not to be enamored as well, as Pavarotti’s larger-than-life personality shines in almost every scene.
- 58IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichPavarotti, much like its subject, is fun and full of life for as long as it lasts, but as soon as it’s over you realize how little of it you got to see. Howard’s doc offers a crystal clear record of how Pavarotti brought opera to the world, but it leaves us guessing at what he might have left behind.
- 58The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyRon Howard’s documentary Pavarotti is content to bask in his glow; despite the broad array of home movies, family photos, interviews, TV outtakes, and concert recordings at its disposal, it never feels intimate with Pavarotti the person.
- 50Slant MagazineDerek SmithSlant MagazineDerek SmithThroughout, the too-brief depictions of Luciano Pavarotti’s flaws are conspicuously shrouded in a veil of hagiography.
- 50Boston GlobePeter KeoughBoston GlobePeter KeoughThe best part of Ron Howard’s long-winded and fitfully moving Pavarotti occurs at the beginning with footage from 1995 of the world-famous tenor — who died in 2007, at 71 — visiting an opera house built in the middle of the Amazon jungle. The legend has it that Enrico Caruso had performed there 100 years before.