Metacritic reviews

Love Is Strange emerges as a total triumph for Sachs and his co-leads, John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, who, despite lengthy filmographies, turn in career-topping work. a sensitive domestic tragedy about the finite nature of any union.

Sachs, Molina, and Lithgow have given adult moviegoers a perfect piece of summer counterprogramming — a warm, humane, resplendent romance to savor while our days are still long.

Calling Love Is Strange a great gay love story is both precise and inaccurate; I doubt I’ll see a more finely performed and beautifully crafted love story, with or without any mere modifiers, up on the big screen this year.

Love Is Strange is a sophisticated take on contemporary urbanity infused with romantic ideals and the tragedy of their dissolution.

Love Is Strange never feels anything less than authentic, like a true story shared by close friends.

Throughout the picture you understand the miracle and good fortune of finding love, and recognize the great changes in tolerance American society is currently (albeit slowly) undergoing.

This is a sprawling yet intimate narrative, constructed almost entirely of in-between moments rather than the big turning points and tragedies.

Love Is Strange, however, is not about gay marriage. It is about a marriage that happens to be gay. If the film grows slightly boring, even that can be construed as an advance.

Ira Sachs's push for heartrending poetry makes it clear that the film is putting too fine a gloss on the acute pains of one small tragedy.

Love is Strange boasts an abundance of patience and kindness — but not much of a pulse.