''McQueen'' is a 2018 biographical documentary film, directed by Ian Bonhôte, written and co-directed by Peter Ettedgui, and produced by Ian Bonhôte, Andee Ryder, Nick Taussig, and Paul Van Carter under the banner of Misfits Entertainment, and Salon Pictures. The documentary is based on the life and career of British fashion designer

Alexander McQueen Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashio ...

Plot

The film looks into life and career of British fashion designer

Cast

Credits adapted from

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

. *

Tom Ford Thomas Carlyle Ford (born August 27, 1961) is an American fashion designer and filmmaker. He launched his eponymous luxury brand in 2005, having previously served as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Ford wrote and direct ...

Isabella Blow Isabella "Issie" Blow (nee Delves Broughton; 19 November 1958 – 7 May 2007) was an English magazine editor. As the muse of hat designer Philip Treacy, she is credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl as well as pr ...

* Kate Moss *

Janet McQueen Janet may refer to: Names * Janet (given name) * Janet (French singer) (1939–2011) Surname * Charles Janet (1849–1932), French engineer, inventor and biologist, known for the Left Step periodic table * Jules Janet (1861–1945), French psych ...

Production

Film director Ian Bonhôte, and producer Peter Ettedgui approached Alexander McQueen's family to make a documentary film about McQueen; the family declined the request. In February 2017 Bonhôte, and Ettedgui proposed their idea to several film distributors. The film was financed within three days, and director Ian Bonhôte added, "We wanted to make a really respectful cinematic version of Lee’s story". The production team took the project, with "zero access and zero original archive at our fingertips", and worked 18-20 hour for a year to finish the project.

Reception

Box office

''McQueen'' grossed $868,544 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, and grossed $205,045 in Australia, for a total worldwide gross of $2,638,552. On its domestic opening weekend the film grossed $98,873, averaging $24,718 per location. On its second weekend ''McQueen'' grossed $83,461, with change of -16%, and averaging $16,692 per location. On its third weekend the film grossed $181,638, which became its highest opening weekend, with +118% change, and averaging $5,342 per 34 theaters.

Critical response

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "''McQueen'' offers an intimate, well-sourced, and overall moving look at a young life and brilliant career that were tragically cut short."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim".

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...

of the ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' wrote, "''McQueen'' is an empathetic, ravishing and scorchingly outspoken look at why, eight years after his death, he still leaves us transfixed". Michael O'Sullivan of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' wrote, "''McQueen''” makes the case that its subject was an artist whose clay was clothing. It also, despite giving short shrift to psychoanalysis, reminds us that everything you might want to know about the artist can be found in the art".

Kenneth Turan Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1991 ...

of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' wrote, "If you live and die for fashion, a documentary called “McQueen” could tell only one story, that of designer Alexander McQueen, whose extraordinary gifts, dark preoccupations and tragic death make for a completely engrossing, compulsively watchable film".

Accolades

References

External links

* {{Alexander McQueen Alexander McQueen American documentary films American biographical films Documentary films about fashion designers 2010s English-language films 2010s American films