Peter Hujar's Day

Where does the time go? That was the question Linda Rosenkrantz wanted to investigate, as she sat her friend the photographer Peter Hujar down in front of a tape recorder in 1974 and asked him to recount all he could remember of the previous day, from the moment he awoke to the time he fell asleep. Hujar (Ben Whishaw) throws himself into the exercise, describing a fraught shoot with Allen Ginsberg and a chat with Susan Sontag, as well as casual asides about Lauren Hutton, Fran Leibovitz and William Burroughs. Remarkably, director Ira Sachs (Passages; Love is Strange) doesn’t dramatize these events, but recreates the interview itself. The result is unexpectedly fascinating, a fabulous conjuring trick and a delicious showcase for the talents of Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall.

As the two talk, they move around different parts of the apartment. They make coffee, they drink tea and eat cookies. They stand outside. They lounge in bed. The light changes. Their outfits change. A shaft of sunlight might hit Hujar in an odd way, the warm glow of a sunset might reflect off a surface…. We all understand light, and warmth, and the feeling of another person’s touch. It’s through such subtle cues that this tender, lovely film starts to feel like something we might have all experienced once… A masterpiece.

Bilge Eberi, New York Magazine

This is superior Hangout Cinema 101. The movie runs 76 minutes. It could have been four times as long.

David Fear, Rolling Stone

Led by a performance of transfixing grace and subtlety from Ben Whishaw in the title role, the diaristic film spins compacted time into something free-flowing, expansive, illuminating and emotionally resonant, all of it achieved with elegant restraint.

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter