Reception
The film has garnered mixed to negative reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 26% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 39 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 15 reviews.
Marketed as an "erotic noir-thriller", the film incited some tough criticism for its more explicit content, which explores earning it the title of "a limp, sleazy inanity" with "a whiff of voyeuristic self-indulgence" in Variety's review of the film. Even the more positive pieces comment on this, such as Slant Magazine's review by David Pratt-Robinson that remarks that lead actress Asia Argento "looks ready to rape anything in sight".
The film's acting inspired a wide range of critical opinion, although the view that Asia Argento is one of the most appealing aspects of Boarding Gate is nearly universal. The Village Voice's J. Hoberman takes this common remark to its extreme, when juxtaposed with a scathing review of the film - "There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento."
Several reviews go as far as to imply that it is the inevitable product of the actress' own provocative attitude rather than simply a performance. Manohla Dargis, praising Argento's performance as striking, notes that her "on-screen ferocity" only nearly rivals her prominent tattoos and "the ease with which she sheds her clothes, which explains why I can describe those tattoos with confidence." Describing her as "aggressively carnal", New York Magazine's David Edelstein makes the wry remark that he "can’t help thinking there was a mix-up at the hospital and her dad was Klaus Kinski."
David Pratt-Robinson had a positive take on the character: "so fierce and so fragile,... a global misfit, a citizen of the world who can't quite find her place...yet, somehow, she makes the idea of being in transit feel like home." Whilst criticizing her general approach to acting as "bluffing her way through", The New Yorker's David Denby similarly describes Sandra as "lewd and hungry, but she’s not boring — the character keeps changing, and you can see Argento’s mind working behind all the viperish moves."
Little attention is generally given to other performances, summarized by Variety in the phrase "cast, whether native English speakers or not, woodenly recite their lines." However, Kim Gordon's "god-awful cameo" as businesswoman Kay is frequently singled out for criticism. She "gives one of the worst musician-turned-actor turns in recent memory," according to Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News.
Boarding Gate was placed at 83 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.
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