Queen of the Desert (2015) User Reviews (128)

A Remarkable Human, a Remarkable Life, Too Bad Hollywood Ruined It

[amylunabelly · 5/10 · 19 April 2016]

Gertrude Bell is one of the most remarkable people (of either sex) to have ever lived...but you wouldn't know it from this film. Archaeologist, mountain climber, poet, translator, linguist, explorer, diplomat, spy, (to name just a handful of her many accomplishments) and all in a time in which women were virtually prohibited from doing any of those things, for the most part, and in territories that even men of the time feared to tread. In addition to being the world's expert on both Sunni and Shiite relations before, during and after WWII, she was charged with drawing up the boundaries for modern day Iraq. She was respected, admired and desired.

But, since she was female, it took nearly a decade to green light a movie on her life and then some man decides to make her life story an epic "romance" and, of course, make the MEN in her life central to her story. How heartbreaking that her story was so terribly contrived to conform to Hollywood's stereotypes about women and women's lives. And how more tragic that this film could not even find a U.S. distributer as of this writing. This is why we live in a world that thinks women make little to no contributions to history. We rarely tell their stories and when we do, we stuff the round peg of a remarkable life into the square hole of Hollywood sexist tropes, believing no one wants to see a film with a female protagonist unless she's spending at least half the movie pining over some man in order to feel whole.

While the movie does cover many of her remarkable accomplishments, my beef with the film is the need to weigh her story down with overly melodramatic, poorly written scenes of tragic love instead of celebrating a superlative life of unique and notable triumphs. I wanted to see more on her travels, her discoveries, her diplomacy, her efforts during the war. Just gender flip this film (although it would be hard to find a man of history as accomplished in multiple fields as she was) and you'll see how ridiculous is the script's focus on what was only one facet of the brilliant gem that was Gertrude Bell.

I urge anyone interested in history to read about this woman's life. Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, by Janet Wallach is a great biography.

Hollywood has perfected the fine art of trivializing and "romanticizing" women's history...yet again.

Atypical Herzog

[diand_ · 6/10 · 18 February 2015]

Queen of the Desert breaks form with several other Herzog movies: A female lead character, a grand Hollywood-like production and most interesting: a different perspective on the culture-nature dichotomy and the effects of cultural distance that almost forms the core of Herzog's work.

It tells the story of Gertrude Bell (Kidman), an English writer and traveler who became more and more influential in the Middle East region through her unprecedented travels where she formed bonds with several future postcolonial leaders. Later in life she became involved in politics and helped to found several nation states (and determine its borders), along which Jordan and Iraq through the Hashemite dynasties. She worked in close cooperation with T.E. Lawrence (Pattison).

It is always interesting to see what's left out of the story: her efforts to establish the new countries were far more extreme and tiresome (plus the real reason Iraq was founded: cost-cutting by the British Empire), her witnessing of the Armenian genocide and slave trade, her actual spying role, her relative poverty, illness and depression later in life. What is paid attention to elaborately are her love interests (well played by Franco and Lewis), both ending in tragedy. But too much are we watching a watered-down, Hollywood interpretation of Bell by Kidman and not the real strong and intelligent woman she obviously had to be handling the complexities of deal making in the region.

Yet some typical trademarks of Herzog still shine through: travel to unknown, unmapped places where people find their cultural beliefs and visions on reality tested. In Herzog's world, venturing into nature from the cultural boundaries of existence always leads to suffering and destruction, mankind being unable to conquer the forces of nature. What makes this movie then atypical in the work of Herzog is that Bell finds solace and fulfillment through that process. Also atypical is the time we spent inside: these scenes inside the bastions of power are unfortunately not the best in the movie, and in the landscape scenes, Herzog seems much more on his turf.

Herzog always saw himself as resisting the banality of the images film is projecting, but here he somewhat contributes to that process. Despite that Queen of the Desert is still very watchable, informative and yes, even entertaining.

Undistinguished Biopic!

[spookyrat1 · 5/10 · 8 December 2019]

I have to be blunt. Reading Gertrude Bell's Wikipedia entry arguably provides more thrills than watching Werner Herzog's misfire of a biopic. Although a contemporary and, as this film suggests, a likely friend of TE Lawrence, Queen of the Desert, doesn't even come remotely close to telling Bell's story with the same sort of grandeur and vision that David Lean achieved with Lawrence of Arabia.

Bell led a life of adventure and achievement, in a range of diverse locations and across a variety of disciplines that Herzog doesn't really even attempt to explore. Hell, the woman even had an interesting death (as far as deaths can be interesting I suppose). He only focuses his cameras on Bell's middle eastern travels. But then makes the mistake of trying to define much of Bell's life through a couple of failed and unfulfilled love encounters with men associated with diplomatic posts. A great deal of onscreen time is spent in various embassies and at different functions, that I'm afraid I consider time just wasted.

When Herzog finally decides to turn to the desert, we are presented with some breath-taking, but often quite brief scenes. We see her begin to interrelate with a number of Bedouin tribes in abrupt, fairly forgettable exchanges, which never succeed in portraying how she ended up being such an influentially historical figure in the region, whose reputation rivalled that of Lawrence himself. Then there are factual inaccuracies that Herzog allows/makes for no real artistic objectives. Basic things such as her being confined to Ha'il for 11 days, not over 3 weeks as mentioned in the dialogue. Occasional years and dates are mentioned onscreen, but shouldn't be taken too seriously. Using the film's timeline, the film appears to begin in 1902, when an obviously young Gertrude first achieves her ambition of travelling east due to her influential father. The only trouble with that is, by this time she was actually 34 and had made copious trips to the Middle East.

Queen of the Desert was both a critical failure and a rather huge commercial flop. It's such a shame that $36 million should be wasted on a movie that doesn't really begin to explore what made this independent, intelligent woman ahead of her times tick.

About as Bland and Lifeless As You Can Get

[Michael_Elliott · 21 April 2017]

Queen of the Desert (2015)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Nicole Kidman plays Gertrude Bell, the legendary British woman who would tackle various things in her lifetime and she would become one of the most loved figures in history. This Werner Herzog biography would make you think the only thing she accomplished was dating the wrong men.

Herzog is one of my favorite directors and I think everyone was excited when they learned that he was making another feature film and that he was going to be getting an actress like Kidman. The film would eventually hear boos at various screenings and it would limp into American theaters two years after it was first released. It would get some of the worst reviews of the director's career and it only managed to get back $2 million of its $36 million dollar budget.

QUEEN OF THE DESERT isn't as awful as some people have made it out to be but at the same time you can't help but call it a complete misfire on many levels. I think the majority of the blame has to go to Herzog's screenplay because this is a film about one of the most interesting women in the world and yet there's nothing interesting about her told here. For the life of me I can't figure out why this film only looks at her love life and outside of some narration, we'd never know what made her special.

I'm pretty sure Herzog was wanting to make an old'fashion epic with a strong leading lady. The problem here is that the screenplay is just deadly boring and none of the emotions the film works for are ever gotten. There's no romance, no drama, no comedy. There's really nothing here to be connected to and you basically just sit there wondering how such a film could go so wrong. At 128-minutes the film really drags in spots and it's just a real shame that the end result was so bland.

There are some good things to be said. The cinematography and music score are both extremely good. The locations used look terrific and there's no question that there are some beautiful visuals to look at. I'd also argue that Kidman was very good in the role and delivers a good performance but there's just nothing on the page for her to work with. James Franco is okay in his role and Robert Pattinson is good in the part of T.E. Lawrence.

QUEEN OF THE DESERT is sadly a film that will probably be remembered for it bombing at the box office and it coming from a legendary director. Herzog has done so many wonderful films in his life that you'd think this here would have been a sure thing but sadly it was a major bust.

Quite enjoyable if you don't know your history and have not read the book 'Desert Queen'.

[emuir-1 · 6/10 · 6 June 2017]

This film was an attractive costume drama which would not have been out of place on Masterpiece Theater, but anyone familiar with Gertrude Bell's achievements and who has read the book 'Desert Queen', will be disappointed at how much was left out. Yes, she was born to a wealthy family, had a brilliant mind, earned a first class degree at Oxford - even attending Oxford was a rarity for a woman at that time. She mixed in the best society being very well connected socially, and also enjoyed the company of many intellectuals of the day. Yes, she fell in love with Henry Cadogan and mourned his death for seven years. She had been prevented from marrying him by her overly possessive parents on some very flimsy grounds - he was a gambler and had no fortune, when they could have easily set up a trust fund for her which he could not touch. Her parents apparently even opened her mail to ensure that she was not being led astray. Her dutiful devotion and love for her parents may have caused her later infatuations and unrequited love for the wrong men.

Her friendship with the married Doughty Wiley was shown, as was her iffy working relationship with T. E. Lawrence who supported her while being quite catty behind her back, but her later unrequited love for Henry Fitzsimmons, who used her but refused flat out to marry her, was not. Nor was her long and very close friendship with King Faisal of Iraq, which began when he was Prince and whom she had been instrumental in supporting on the throne. As Faisal's wife and family remained in Mecca and Gertrude became his close adviser, many suspected that they were lovers.

Her years of round the world tours to get over Henry's death were left out. Eventually she began her journeys through the middle east and gained the knowledge which put her in the center of things in WWI as a source of information about the Arab tribes, and supporter and close adviser to King Faisal. She was present at the Paris Peace Conference when the winners, desperate to get their hands on the oil, divided up the middle east between them, largely reneging on the promises to allow the Arabs their own kingdom and instead installing puppet kingdoms under British and French mandates.

The film ended with a very brief meeting with Faisal and his brother Abdullah, and an epilogue about the creation of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia where Gertrude Bell had helped define the borders and choose the rulers. But there was much more to the story. After the heady success of helping to create the modern middle eastern kingdoms, being appointed Oriental Secretary awarded the CBE, and being Faisal's right hand woman, called upon every day not only for advice, but companionship, games, tennis, Gertrude found herself becoming less and less important as her task had ended. It probably did not help that she was a woman and had trodden on quite a few toes on the way up. Men would have felt threatened by her and wives would have been jealous. She concentrated her efforts on her writing and establishing the Baghdad Museum, but her life had become empty and no doubt she felt unwanted and useless. Faisal saw less of her and spent more time in Europe 'taking the cures'. Her family fortune disappeared in the post war changing times and she was reduced to living alone if not in poverty, but 'straightened circumstances'. In 1926 she died of an overdose of sleeping pills, which was ruled an accident.

Other than leaving half the story out, the other serious flaw was the miscasting of Faisal and Abdullah and their very brief appearance at the close of the film. The two actors should have switched parts. Abdullah, the great grandson of today's King of Jordan, was short and round faced, Faisal was tall, thin, charismatic and extremely handsome. His leadership of the Arab revolt was the reason for the allied win over the Turks. From the film one would think she had only met with Faisal for one minute. Showing more of her relationship with Faisal would have perked up the film enormously.

Overall, this topic should have been a Masterpiece Theater miniseries running for at least six hours.

Why?

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 21 June 2018]

That is the unanswered question here. Why? Why exactly was Gertrude Bell so fascinated with the desert states she explored. She rode camels a lot. She walked a lot. She appeared to be tall. All superficial things about this character. But we all that camel riding and walking got boring after a while...and not a very long while at that. Clearly there must have been a fascinating woman there...but you'd never know it by this film. 128 minutes is not too long for most films...but it was too long here.

That's not to say the film has no redeeming qualities. Oddly enough, I can't stand James Franco. But here I found his performance very engaging...although it took me a while to realize who he was. Of course, as one of the good things about the movie, we only see him in the early scenes of the movie.

Nicole Kidman did a fine job as Gertrude Bell. That wasn't the problem with the movie. The problem was the script and the directing. The most interesting casting may have been that as Robert Pattinson as "Lawrence of Arabia"; quite interesting...but he's no Peter O'Toole. And I found it interesting to see Jenny Agutter, who I lost track of since 1976 in "Logan's Run" (I know I just dated myself).

The film wasn't bad enough to turn off, but it did take me several sittings to wade through the plodding plot. It's a shame...I have a feeling there was a fascinating story here.

Context misunderstanding

[yarachehayed · 4/10 · 22 March 2016]

Obviously the director of this movie does not understand the context of the middle east and he is taking this part of the world as a bulk and treating it as a whole. When in Tehran they speak Arabic, Tehran is in Iran they speak Farisi not Arabic, when in the market one guy is obviously Moroccan while the movie is narrating a middle eastern story (Amman Jordan) different dialect, and the Beddouin music always starting with Allah W Akbar which is a religious chant not necessarily specific to the middle east where you can find Christians, Kurds and a lot more ethnicity. To make long story short the director reflected his understanding of the ME based on orientalist concepts and not real facts.

I Hope The Film Doesn't Represent The Actual Person

[damianphelps · 6/10 · 6 August 2021]

The film is ok, I never felt bored or found myself waiting for it to finish.

However the depiction of Gertie was really of an entitled woman who swanned around wherever she felt like because she believed she should be able to, whilst letting other people fix things for her.

There must have been more to this person than this?

Boring grandiosity

[sparkerd · 1/10 · 20 August 2017]

I stared in disbelief as Nicole Kidman entered and I was expected to believe she was a young maybe early 20's woman. I love her don't get me wrong, but that was beyond any sense of reality. Her simpering sugary overly acted "love" affair with Franco made me gag on it's sugary soft spoken sweetness and Franco always looked like he was about to turn to the camera and say, just joking wah wah wah. I don't even know what this movie was supposed to be about as my mind kept straying to other things. Should I go to the grocery store or just order a pizza. Should I do laundry now or wear an outfit I don't really like but is clean for work tomorrow. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow. At about the halfway mark I threw in the towel and just looked up the actual woman. Her biography was far more interesting than this tripe that the director wanted to go who knows where.

Beautiful film, not too detailed on facts.

[peterhtoo · 7/10 · 20 February 2016]

A film worth seeing, explains the birth of present middle east. A visionary feast and both Nicole Kidman and James Franco's acting is superb.Most critics didn't give it a thumbs up but for me it was a beautiful film, maybe because the lead was a woman who changed the course of history! For anyone who doesn't know anything about the middle east should see it just for history and Gertrude Bells significance in history....

The photography is exhilarating and get to see the desert and the oasis in their beauty. The movie might lack historical details but it focuses on Gertrude Bells life, so that is understandable. But at least for people who never knew what or how the middles east came about and what she did it is an eye opener. A must see file for me!

Queen of Drivel

[Cathex · 3/10 · 28 February 2016]

What a massive disappointment from Herzog. Before this I was a huge Herzog fan, which is why this film is such a bizarre shock. It was as though Werner Herzog had suddenly become a pupil of Josh Boone, which is like Mozart taking lessons from Justin Bieber. Is this some kind of joke?

Sadly not. This is an over long, melodramatic, corny idealisation of an aristocratic woman who, having no real responsibilities in life, decides to use her vast wealth to embark on a life long holiday across the desert, because really what else is she do with her time?

Throughout the film the main character is idealised, swooned over, worshipped and deferred to. Why? Not because she belongs to the most privileged and powerful class of women on the planet, but because she has a courageous heart and a deep, enigmatic understanding of Arabs.

At the end we have some childish moralising about the injustice of the British empire, aptly spoken from one aristocrat to another (without a lick of irony) and then the 'Queen' of the upper classes rides off into the desert to be immortalised as a female idol for generations to come. Not that she actually did anything to help anyone whatsoever.

Poorly acted, poorly written, poorly conceptualised and thoroughly boring.

What A Beautiful Film

[frogsaroyan · 9/10 · 14 June 2016]

I believe that Queen of The Desert is greater than the sum of its parts, and that its parts are inspired to begin with. So many things about this film are beyond beautiful, they are sublime. I watched it twice. I don't know if Werner Herzog wanted to make a Hollywood-style period romance, and it doesn't matter to me whether anyone else thinks he achieved creating one or not.

The film isn't about a romance, it's about romance, period. Specifically, the romance that can find itself at the center of someone's life. Herzog told a story in which Bell had multiple romantic relationships that weren't just with people. In this way he gave her character a deep spiritual life. She had a fling with poetry and writing, an affair with the desert, passion for traveling, true love with multiple men, and loving friendships. In addition, every main character is shown to be loving in some way. I like TE Lawrence's character (played delightfully by Robert Pattinson) because he tries like mad to avoid romance, but also seems to be feigning his aversion.

In QOTD, many characters risk their lives for love, and some do give their lives. It isn't just one or two main characters, and it isn't just for the love of another person.

Near the end of QOTD, a bedouin leader asks Bell why she loves them (Arabs) so much. By her answer, which is a tribute to her trusted guide Fattuh, we understand what she's all about, and what this film is all about. It's beautifully written dialogue by Herzog.

One of my very favourite things about this film was the number of times Kidman was shown laughing. There is hardly a character in the film with whom she isn't seen sharing a good laugh. The film isn't funny, and Bell wasn't meant to be comedic. And yet there is this frequent laughter. That's joy. There's joy in this film. This is what has made Queen of The Desert one of my favourite movies of all time.

I enjoyed the "dreaminess" of the film. In no way was it psychedelic or self-referential (done for effect). It was written into Gertrude Bell's character. This was a wonderful artistic choice.

Random things I loved: The references to poetry and literature. The loud camels nearly ruining the grand orchestral score. The steampunk-ish pistols in the case. James Franco flirting like only James Franco can. The snow in the desert! No subtitles. And most of all, the use of a good number of truly great actors from around the world who are of Arab descent.

Some favourite moments: the close-up on Bell when she and Cadogan hold hands for the first time. When Doughty-Wylie kisses her for the first time and her reaction is shown at length (such complex acting from Kidman and Lewis here, especially Kidman). The hand-held camera at the desert camp. The pain of the young Arab messenger as he confesses to Bell, "I would give anything for a woman like you," knowing he would never see her again but for that moment. The Shiek of the Druze talking Virgil.

Anytime a filmmaker is both writer and director, like Herzog is here, there will be a divergence from the tropes of the genre in which his film may be expected to fit. Hopefully the audience will buy in to his vision. I did wholeheartedly.

Nicole Kidman as Gertie of Arabia

[Barev2013 · 7/10 · 30 March 2015]

QUEEN Of THE DESERT, In Competition at Berlin 2015, 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. You've heard heard of "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle": Now meet "Gertie, Queen of the Desert" as portrayed by an ever lovely and delicate Nicole Kidman in Werner Herzog's epic sandy biopic of English aristocrat Gertrude Bell, who became a sort of female Lawrence of Arabia when she was enthralled by the purity of the way of life of the Bedouin nomads of the middle eastern deserts and ventured on her own into the interior to study their cultures first hand and hob- nob with the sheiks despite strong objections by the British governors in Cairo and Baghdad. Along the way you'll also run into a gritty dropout Lawrence of Arabia who comes on like a skateboarder in drag and a bungling caricature of Winston Churchill falling all over himself as he attempts to mount a camel worried mainly about his lit cigar that got dumped in the process. See Fantastic sandune-scapes and the prettiest camels ever screened to fill out this vast portrait of the Middle East in World War I when the lines in the sand were drawn which stake out today's Arab Spring Nightmare. Topical background in view of today's headlines -- ISIS beheadings and incineration of hostages and all that, most lushly filmed in Morocco and Jordan with an extensive cast you will need a scorecard to keep track of and so long it feels like GWTW, but worth the patience it takes to sit through especially if you are a Werner Herzog unconditional and, like myself, a lover of camels.

Quite beautiful to watch but it does take patience and should be provided with an intermission to break up the interminability. In the packed house press screening I attended on the first full day of the festival there was a steady trickle of walkouts after the halfway mark and sparse polite applause at the end. Might win something, however, because this is Herzog Lifework homage year in Berlin but is really overblown with many hoaky impersonations of Arab Shieks and Kidman -- though more radiant than ever -- is far too delicate a flower to portray the hardy desert survivor the real Gertrude Bell of the title (1868 - 1926) must have been -- and at forty a bit old to play a teenager and a young women in her twenties. INDIE-WIRE comment: The legendary filmmaker's first movie in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in decades is a catastrophe. What gives? -- Well, sometimes something's gotta give ....

Great disappointment

[handsome_brian · 2/10 · 31 July 2016]

Having worked in Saudi Arabia, I was really looking forward to this film. But it fell short in just about every way. Historically it was dreadful (starting in 1914 and then "going back" 12 years - by my simply maths this is 1902 - to have a toast to Queen Victoria by an embassy official is nonsense since she had died in 1901!) The acting was hackneyed and Nicole Kidman, though trying very hard, was totally unconvincing.

Numerous people have pointed out the howlers such as the wrong language being spoken, reading from left to right, and handling food with the left hand; and how on earth did she keep her skin lily-white while riding through the desert. At the very least she could have expected a somewhat red nose and face!

But the main criticism must be the script which was so predictable and puerile and laughable and lacked depth in any way whatsoever. A great shame as much of the location and images were lovely - and I could even believe some of the scenes shot in Morocco and Jordan were actually shot in Saudi.

If you like desert scenery you may well enjoy this film, just so long as you don't think for one moment this biopic reflects reality.

Werner must have gotten lost in the desert. Nicole is not Lawrence.

[JohnDeSando · 8 April 2017]

Although it's not Lawrence of Arabia, and Robert Pattinson suffers from O'Toole comparison, director Werner Herzog still brings to life the hitherto little-known heroine, Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman). Her exploits at the beginning of the 20th century helped cast a favorite light on Bedouins and Druses as she moved among them and helped negotiate the end-of-WWI land split in Arabia and environs.

Herzog will have to suffer my criticism that remembers his crazed but magnetic wild men like Aguirre and Fitzcaraldo. Queen lacks the energy in his many stories of madmen like Aguirre. Here, while Nicole appears aristocratic and smart, she never rises above the thoughtful scholar or emerging anthropologist.

Alas, too much is the time spent with the two loves of her life and not enough time among the tribes and diplomats she had to corral to get her inside unknown territory. Why must women in movies still be defined by the men they love?

Herzog is not at his best with virtually half the film watching her dance around the Tehran Embassy diplomat, Henry Cadogan (James Franco), and the British officer, Charles Doughty-Wylie (Damian Lewis). Herzog misses the more romantic possibilities of her involvement in the war effort in favor of two not very interesting romances.

That her loves tend toward their suicide hints at the powerful woman who could have sparked these annihilations. Kidman, a fine actress who gives a nuanced performance here, is mostly directed to play coy more than adventuresome.

Travelers Guide to the Arabian Lands

[iquine · 6/10 · 23 May 2019]

(Flash Review)

During global strife in the Middle East, the British government strategizes a plan to create order and boundaries between nations. Gertrude Bell, coming from high British status chooses to leave that life and in order to wander through the beauty of the desert and making friends with people in every nation and soaking up their "poetry of life." She made countless contacts, made genuine friendships and gained trust throughout unstable lands while reporting back to British officials. This film was picturesque in a minimal way and it really showed her love for the land and the cultures yet I wish the film had more boldly shown the true impact and unique influence she had rather than leaving it to factoids at the end. It also lacked any sense of drama or true challenge of her adventures.

People are being too critical

[whatidothatdefinesme · 7/10 · 13 January 2021]

Moat of the reviews on this movie are being too harsh. People are always upset about historical mistakes and things of that nature and they may have some right to be, but in the end its a movie and its meant to entertain and take us away. In my opinion this was a decent movie with good acting by Nicole Kidman and an interesting story. The setting, scenery and soundtrack took me away and by the time it was over i felt like i had gone on adventures as well. If you want an exact portrate of Gertride Bell's life read a book or watch a documentary, if you want to be entertained by a good film, i'd reccomend this.

Revisionist History

[dfe51 · 1/10 · 18 April 2018]

I hate movies that go to the earth and the moon to look historical, but are not. This is JFK goes to the Middle East. The opening scene, (1914), has a group of Senior British Officers ,and Winston Churchill,(First Lord of the Admiralty in 1914), discussing the Sykes-Picot agreement. Just a few small problems, in 1914 TE Lawrence was a Lieutenant assigned cartography duties in the basement of British Headquarters, Winston Churchill never visited the Middle East during WWI, he fought in trenches in France. The Sykes=Picot Agreement was leaked in the May-June of 1916, two years after this meeting is suppose to have taken place. At that point I went numb, and just finish watching the movie. I'm sure Gertrude Bell had some role in advising the British, but this movie makes a mockery of whatever she did do. The fact that this movie was made in 2015, and not released on Showtime til 2018, speaks volumes.

Beautifully filmed and interesting - not an adventure story

[phd_travel · 7/10 · 11 June 2017]

I can see why this movie wasn't a box office smash - it's not an adventure tale with battles and lots of excitement. This is a biopic of a brave British woman who explored the desert areas of what is now Syria Iraq Jordan etc in the early 1900s and got to know the tribes and later help draw up boundaries of the newly formed countries after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Her ill fated romances punctuate the story.

Nicole Kidman convincingly plays a range of ages from 20s to I guess 40s. Robert Pattinson looks a bit goofy and out of place as TE Lawrence. But even more strangely cast is James Franco as an English civil servant. He whispers his dialog so his accent isn't terribly disastrous.

The photography in the desert is quite stunning.

Interesting.

Just stupid

[MadPersian · 1/10 · 6 January 2019]

I'm from Persia aka Iran, in our country we have more than 20 different languages and Ethnicities but our race/nationality is Persian and to let you know Persians speak Persian, simple and easy if you repeat it twice you'll learn it, Persians speak Persian, Persians speak Persian, that's it, not Arabic not Farsi!!! We say Farsi only in our native language just like Germans say Deustch as the name of their language! Alexander was a junky who attacked Persia and raped Persian womens and childrens and burned Persepolis and the whole city and took life of many peoples but these two lovely birds were in Persia and they shared the coin of the Alexander *The great* to show their love!!! And the Arabic hats!!!

Surprisingly Good

[doreen90755-2 · 7/10 · 14 December 2018]

I am surprised that I had never heard of this movie until The Movie Channel showed it this month. It must've had a very short release here in the U.S. To get the complete story, see the documentary "Letters From Baghdad" (2016), narrated by Tilda Swinton, as Gertrude Bell, which was shown on PBS, and was so good, that I didn't even want to watch this one. I did enjoy this one, in spite of their trying to insert romances with men that were less than portrayed. She was truly an independent individual !

Stultifying

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 7 July 2018]

Anyone would think that Werner Herzog has lost his power to compel with this and the disappointing BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. QUEEN OF THE DESERT is a lengthy biopic of British explorer Gertrude Bell, but in Herzog's hands it turns into a tawdry, drawn-out story bogged down by romance and glossing over the interesting parts of Bell's life. The first mistake is in casting a fiftysomething Nicole Kidman in a role that should have been played by a woman thirty years younger. I don't care how much plastic surgery Kidman has had, but she doesn't look or act like a young intrepid woman at all. Kidman delivers a typically superficial performance, concentrating on her note-perfect accent over anything approaching depth or insight. She's bland. The best actor here is Robert Pattinson as Lawrence of Arabia, but he has very limited screen time. The rest is a blur of well-shot desert landscapes and stultifying human drama, and I'm afraid it's my worst Herzog viewing yet. Perhaps he should stick to the great documentaries he still makes, like INTO THE INFERNO.

The desert knows no minutes

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 27 November 2017]

This is a biography of Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) who was an intellectual woman who lived in the disintegrating Ottoman empire. She was beloved by the locals as a westerner who understood their heart and soul. She knew T.E. Lawrence (Robert Patterson) who was technically beneath her and aided Churchill (Christopher Fulford). She was an author, poet, archaeologist, diplomat, traveler and spy.

While I liked the film, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. Please forgive my misogyny, but her biography has a very female point of view, not that it was a bad thing, it just seemed to dummy down her life. The first 40 minutes of the film concerns her early life and suitors as well as her lover Henry (James Franco in a clean cut role). Her life in the desert shows her meeting T.E. Lawrence and love for Charles Doughty-Wylie (Damian Lewis). The film seemed very poetic in nature as we are read portions of their love letters. The nuts and bolts work of Gertrude Bell took a back seat to art and style as Kidman played Bell with class and distinction.

It seemed more of an art film, then a biopic.

Guide: No swearing. Brief implied sex. Kidman in a wet transparent undergarment...because sometimes love letters and poetry are not enough.

Not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests

[paul-allaer · 6/10 · 9 April 2017]

"Queen of the desert" (2015 release; 125 min.) is a bio-pic of Gertrude Bell, a/k/a "the female Lawrence of Arabia". As the movie opens, we are told it is "Cairo, 1914, British Arab Bureau", where a group of men (including Winston Churchill) is debating how to reshape the faltering Ottoman Empire. Someone mentions they should maybe consult Gertrude Bell. The movie then goes to "Twelve Years Earlier", where we see Gertrude restless in her parents' strict British upbringing. She begs her father to let her get away from it all, and he finally gives in, sending her to to British Embassy in Tehran. At this point we're 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this movie is the latest from writer-director Werner Herzog, equally known for both feature films and documentaries. Here he brings to the big screen a 15 year period in Gertrude Bell's life, during which she traveled the Arabian peninsula and deserts relentlessly, earning her the nickname "the female Lawrence of Arabia" (T.E. Lawrence in fact appears in the film as well). Herzog is known as a very solid storyteller, so it comes as a surprise that the storytelling isn't stronger, in particular the first half of the movie drags far too long for its own good. As we are watching the movie unfold, it is clear that this is a big budget movie, and in the end the movie functions as much as a travelogue than anything else. There are some notable acting performances, none more so than Nicole Kidman, in what I consider her best role in YEARS. James Franco is in the movie for a good half hour (as the Secretary of the Tehran Embassy and Gertrude's early love interest), and an unrecognizable Robert Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence.

This movie premiered over 2 years ago at the Berlin Film Festival to less than stellar reviews, and pretty much sank like a stone upon a wider European release. Imagine my surprise when the movie opened this weekend out of the blue and without any pre-release hype or advertising on a single screen for all of Greater Cincinnati. The Saturday matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great, and even though the movie gets only 2 screenings a day, I would be surprised it if lasted more than a single week on the big screen. That said, given its reputation, I had zero expectations going into this, and much to my surprise the movie isn't nearly as bad as I had expected it. The lovely photography and scenery, and a very likable performance from Nicole Kidman, did the trick for me. If you liked "Lawrence of Arabia" (and who doesn't?), you should definitely give this a try as well. Keep your expectations low, and chances are you'll find this fairly enjoyable.

A Cup of Tea with Your Desert

[westsideschl · 2/10 · 9 October 2017]

Poor choice of actors as portrayals were not convincing (mostly just eye candy appeal), and acting seemed to be mostly rote memorization and regurgitate. Writers tried to rescue with emphasis on romantic scenes which were also not convincing. Adding a Lawrence character was almost a charade. No sense of the hard work that Kidman's character, Bell, must have put in/endured. Lots of desert scenes which seemed more Hollywood cute than a sweaty gritty actual depiction