They're all left to twist in a film that imagines it has the epic historical melancholy of Clint Eastwood's «Unforgiven» or James Grey's «The Immigrant» but instead becomes defined by lugubriousness: long lap dissolves of the characters staring sadly into space or pronouncing on the death of the American dream. (bostonglobe.com)
Villeneuve is one of the rare commercial filmmakers who's not afraid of stillness and silence, and if anything, he goes a little overboard with his lugubriousness at times; the film runs just shy of three hours and could stand to lose a few moments of moody staring. (thewrap.com)
But Iain Baxter & got the joke first, sending up the lugubriousness of cultural production in the 1960s — a time when the press release, the grant proposal, and the institutional contract were new inventions in a burgeoning art economy. (artforum.com)