The greatest movie ever!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is great visually, but the story doesn't hold up as well as the visual style. I am not very familiar with the real life story of the painter that this movie is based on, but I never really got a sense of who he really was. Which is a shame because it feels like you are supposed to understand him and his art. What makes the movie work is the nightmarish tone throughout.There are some strange and frightening images which are worth a look. You could say this movie is a bit experimental. But, again, the main character did unfortunately not work too well for me. He felt rude and selfish and his inner monologues felt like a different character in my opinion. In the end it seemed like the secondary character was the more sympathetic one. I don't know if that was the point, but I'm sure the painter had an interesting life. This is just not the movie to showcase it. Don't get me wrong, it's not the actors fault. They do a good job with what they are given.There are some interesting things here. Colors are great and some locations feel claustrophobic, which help give the sense that you can't escape this dream. I just wish the main character could be more like-able and that it had a story you could get more invested in. Watching it is still surreal, dark and will take you on a unique dream like experience.So, the visual outshine the characters in my opinion. It is worth watching for the nightmare/dream scenes. Everything to do with that reminds me of something out of a David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick film. Hey, maybe the main character will work better for you. Maybe this movie could grow on you over time, it feels like it's one of those type of films that need a bit of time digest.

This is a film about relationships, relationships which flow over and between Bacon's life and work. I come away from the film knowing much more than I ever knew and felt about Bacon and his work, and also the period in which he worked. I would liked to have seen much more of the famous (or should that be infamous) "Colony Room" where Bacon done his drinking and socialzing. Daniel Craig is spot on as the East End spiv and petite crook. Tilda Swinton plays the hilariously foul-mouthed Muriel Belcher and I am sure that Belcher would make make a good central character in another film. The film is not about Bacon's paintings, but the man himself. His relationships his world. London could never ever been as seedy as this but what a great place to search out life.

For certainly this movie has it's fair share of horror in an abstract way. Like Bacon's work, there is much chaos and fear portrayed in his paintings. They represent what most of us would consider a nightmare. To think this man as living the same life as his work is amazing.At times I found some of the scenes hard to take visually as it began to grate on my nerves as I suppose it was meant to do. The colors and the out of focus pictures were hard on the eyes. But then so was Bacon's work. Hard to take. How much truth is told in this tale of his life remains to be seen. For certainly he was a most remarkable, yet hideous man. His phony social life and almost sadistic/masochistic personal life remains to be seen.Derek Jacobi plays Bacon with a ferocious believability and theatrical smoothness. Couldn't imagine anyone ever wanting to live with the likes of this selfish man. But Jacobi at times hit on a touch of tenderness as well. He wasn't all bad. Just mad. The wonderful Daniel Craig, an actor I like very much, was excellent foil to Jacobi as his male companion and lover. The two actors created a great rapport between each other. For it was their relationship that held it together for me.I'm sure if I were to watch this again, I'd get even more out of it. It sort of comes near the other poet/young artist film Total Eclipse.

This is a fearless, eerie film about the relationship between British painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) and his handsome, unsophisticated lover George Dyer (the new James Bond, Daniel Craig). The destructive affair is told from Bacon's and Dyer's perspectives with unsettling images strongly directed by John Maybury. Their story is somewhat like Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell's (told by Stephen Frears in "Prick Up Your Ears"), and the emotional bond between the intellectual artist and the rustic lover reminds me of Truman Capote and Perry Smith (coincidentally, Daniel Craig played Smith in "Infamous") - except that "Love is the Devil" is visceral, surreal and dark like Francis Bacon's world was, and Bennett Miller's acclaimed "Capote", a good, albeit overrated, film with a spectacular performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, was more concerned about being elegant and palatable than being closer to the truth. Bacon and Capote were talented, troubled men, with huge ego issues, who were partly responsible for their respective lover's (Dyer)/ protégé's/victim? (Smith) ruin - and, later, for their own.Had John Maybury been like Bennett Miller and turned Bacon's life into an 'elegant' flick, we'd have an Oscar contender here; thankfully he did not, and we got a brave little film that is hard to watch because it's such a visceral painting of an unsettling world. Jacobi and Craig are phenomenal, and the always fantastic Tilda Swinton has a small part as one of Bacon's friends. Well done, Mr. Maybury. 8/10.