M. Butterfly1993
M. Butterfly (1993)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: David Cronenberg reins in his provocative sensibility and handles delicate material with restraint, yielding a disappointing adaptation that flattens M. Butterfly into a tedious soap opera.
M. Butterfly Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Rene Gallimard
as Song Liling
as Jeanne Gallimard
as Ambassador Toulon
as Frau Baden
as Comrade Chin
as Embassy Colleague
as Agent Etancelin
as Intelligence Officer #1
as Intelligence Officer #2
as Intelligence Officer #3
as Song's Maid
as Defense attorney
as Prosecution attorney
as Judge
as Ambassador's Aide
as Diplomat at party
as Drunk in Paris Bar
as Critic at Garden Party
as Mall Trustee
as Surveillance Technician
as Marshal
as Accordian Player
as Red Guard Dancer
as Red Guard Dancer
as Red Guard Dancer
as Red Guard Dancer
as Red Guard Dancer
as Red Guard Dancer
as Paris Opera Madama Butterfly
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Critic Reviews for M. Butterfly
All Critics (21) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (12)
The problem is not simply that Lone's drag wouldn't fool a baby. In the magnified intimacy of the camera's eye, it's clear Hwang doesn't really know who these unlikely lovers are. Metaphors can't carry a movie-flesh and blood is what's required.
All of this is interesting, in its way, and yet the film of M. Butterfly does not take hold the way the stage play did.
On screen, under the caring but superficial direction of David Cronenberg, the realism of the camera cruelly exposes all the pretenses of this play about a French diplomat who loves a man posing as a woman.
When John Lone parades around in mascara and speaks in an asexual monotone, the film audience discovers itself staring at John Lone's whiskers underneath his makeup
One of Cronenberg's most problematic and most disappointing films, largely due to the source material.
Cronenberg no longer needs slimy parasites or exploding heads; the human heart's ability to fool itself is frightening and bizarre enough.
Audience Reviews for M. Butterfly
David Cronenberg's most bland and disappointing work. Ironic, seeing how the source material is so interesting.
Super Reviewer
In "M Butterfly," Rene Gallimard(Jeremy Irons) is a minor official at the French embassy in Beijing in 1964. As such, he is tired of the tedious events on the social circuit, until he watches a performance of "Madama Butterfly" for the first time and is smitten with Song Liling(John Lone), the lead performer. This infatuation leads him to seek a performance of Chinese opera along with a passionate affair between the two, unbeknowst to Rene's wife Jeanne(Barbara Sukowa). At the same time, he comes to the attention of Ambassador Toulon(Ian Richardson) and is promoted to vice consul. "M Butterfly" is an underrated, very evocative and well-acted movie that touches on David Cronenberg's recurring theme of forbidden love(So, maybe he is a big softie at heart...) while also much more political than his other movies.(David Henry Hwang adapts his own play.) Subtly, the point is we see what we want to see, applied personally to Rene who is from a cloistered background.(Hell, even I've seen a performance of "Madama Butterfly.") This is a more modest time when men and women might still have been old fashioned enough to not undress in front of each other. While open to new experiences, he is also very naive in miscomprehending them. Rene is symbolic of the French government which is a decade removed from being forcibly removed from Vietnam, just got ejected from Algeria and are still analyzing Asia through their own colonial preconceptions which leads to vast mistakes, and continues in the present day with other countries in the Middle East.
Super Reviewer
Strange film, even for Cronenberg.
Super Reviewer
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