"The play it's certain to divide both audiences and critics: its effect ultimately depends on what one looks for. It's only a shadow of the book, but, realistically, this is probably the best adaptation fans and sceptics will get.”
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“I still can’t decide if ‘A Little Life’ is a work of great empathy, great voyeurism or some conflation of the two. But it’s been staged here with consummate skill and Norton’s astonishing performance puts him into the top rank.”
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“I can’t help but think ‘A Little Life’ is probably essentially meaningless, a horrible story told for the thrill of telling a horrible story, its nihilism ultimately sophomoric and unserious. Brilliant acting, great direction, but at heart it’s simply an empty vision of despair.”
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“There is something heroic in the staging of this story in the West End: resolutely bleak with no catharsis and cyclical violence, it is an almost anthropological study of pain.”
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“...here’s my content warning: the exposition-heavy script is as overstated as the accompanying string music – a little less of it, in fact a lot less of it, would help.”
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“The play, inevitably can only deliver a precis of a book that sprawls over some 700 pages...A stylishly mounted, second-rate melodrama.”
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“I felt I had witnessed a terrible, truthful depiction of the ongoing effects of mankind’s capacity for cruelty. I still wondered why I would want to delve so deep, but there is no doubting the production’s power – or the belief and excellence of all the actors.”
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“Just witnessing it tests our endurance too; Norton’s is, though, an astonishing performance in a production that leaves its mark like a livid, tender bruise on the imagination.”
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