Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
Total Eclipse is primarily remembered for Leonardo DiCaprio's ferocious, committed performance as Arthur Rimbaud, capturing the poet's volatile genius with raw intensity. The film depicts the turbulent, destructive love affair between Rimbaud and Verlaine with some dramatic force, though the screenplay (adapted from Christopher Hampton's stage play) can feel stagey and episodic rather than cinematically fluid. Cinematography is competent but unremarkable for a period piece. The biographical subject matter — two iconic French poets in a scandalous 19th-century gay relationship — lends some inherent novelty, but the handling follows relatively conventional biopic and forbidden-romance beats. The ending, depicting Rimbaud's tragic decline and Verlaine's later years, is emotionally resonant though not particularly surprising given the known historical trajectory.