Dirty Pictures - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

In his review in the San Francisco Chronicle, John Carman said the film "labors to apply a semigloss coat of dramatic entertainment to a thorny social issue . . . But the best efforts of veteran director Frank Pierson and screenwriter Ilene Chaiken can't turn the trick . . . We may not know much about art, or First Amendment niceties, but who can't relate to a family in turmoil? Problem is, there's a de rigueur movie feel to it. Real or not, these story points pull our chain too obviously. The movie is drier but more rewarding when it sticks to the point."

In Time, James Poniewozik described the film as a "mechanical, insultingly didactic placard . . . that wants to be an agitprop documentary, interrupting its storyline with interviews of mostly pro-Mapplethorpe notables. The film isn't obligated to be neutral, but it's so bullying and one-sided that a viewer feels guilty for agreeing with it. Defending an artist who preferred aesthetics to righteousness, Dirty Pictures sadly advances exactly the opposite."

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called the film "titillatingly titled but artistically timid" and added, "Chaiken and Pierson drain Dirty Pictures of engaging drama by denying the opposition any believability; they present Barrie's persecutors as hostile idiots and hopeless prudes . . . The director further hobbles the movie's pace by interrupting the narrative with commentator interviews . . ., while occasionally eloquent, are also entirely predictable . . . Will viewers come away with renewed respect for Mapplethorpe's artistic intentions? Maybe. But they might also feel the way the jury does here: condescended to, as if we aren't capable of grappling with disturbing images without an art expert guiding us through them like a therapist."

Channel 4 describes it as "flawed but still engaging . . . more notable for what it says than the way it actually says it . . . it's a thought-provoking trip driven by the reliably charismatic Woods. While the issues themselves get a thorough airing however, other aspects are less satisfying. Supporting characters are underwritten, odd legal issues are over-emphasised and the domestic scenes scream 'made-for-TV'. In purely dramatic terms the most powerful moment comes right at the end and the stark conclusion goes a long way to redeeming the film's inadequacies, even if the events that inspired it are profoundly depressing."

Time Out London says, "Coming over at times like a radical left-field essay film . . . lifts off from its factual origins to deliver a major plea for tolerance and minority understanding, and against political censorship in culture generally."