Synopsis
A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
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Cast
- Nicole KidmanGertrude Bell
- James FrancoHenry Cadogan
- Damian LewisRichard Wylie
- Jay AbdoFattuh
- Robert PattinsonT.E. Lawrence
- Jenny AgutterFlorance Bell
- David CalderHugh Bell
- Christopher FulfordWinston Churchill
- Nick WaringSir Mark Sykes
- Holly EarlFlorence Lascelles
Recommendations
- 60
Variety
Herzog’s script loses its way in the desert at one point, dutifully chronicling a life whose principal conflicts are a bit too abstract to dramatize. In the end, it’s not clear what’s driving Bell, nor what’s holding her back. - 50
The Playlist
It's such a disappointment when you consider the wild portraits of pioneers that Herzog has given us before, that he's so reverent here. Isn't he the director who can locate the madness in everything he sees? Where is Bell's madness? - 50
The A.V. Club
Whatever imprint Queen Of The Desert makes belongs mostly to Kidman, who stresses Bell’s compassion, her fearlessness, her eponymous regality. - 40
The Guardian
It is grown-up, respectable and historical, perfectly competently made, lots of accents and period dressing-up … and just the tiniest bit dull. - 40
The Hollywood Reporter
Despite the director's frequently stated mission to liberate the poetry in his material by excavating what he has described as "ecstatic truth," this is a literal, rather flat epic that keeps telling us in voiceovers of its spiritual dimension, without actually generating much evidence of it. - 40
The Telegraph
]Herzog's] film has the distinction, and also the disadvantage, of being probably the least severe Herzog has yet made: it’s pretty and watchable, with Kidman trying her heartfelt best, but it can’t make its Gertrude Bell, as lover, cultural pioneer and feminist icon, add up to more than a series of voguish poster-girl poses. - 38
Boston Globe
In no way, shape, or fashion does Queen of the Desert qualify as a good movie, but for fans of Werner Herzog — those of us who have followed cinema’s Teutonic imp of the perverse since the 1970s, when he was staging all-dwarf fables and sending conquistadors across mountains — it is fascinating and something close to a must-see. - 37
Washington Post
Though Kidman delivers a workmanlike performance, the story manages to be soppy and ploddingly dull, told via a screenplay that drives home the fact that it’s not really about momentous events, but momentous feelings.
