Chris & Don: A Love Story

Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007)

  • 92% of critics liked it
    (37 reviews)

  • 81% of users liked it
    (421 ratings)

Guido Santi and Tina Mascara's documentary Chris and Don. A Love Story traces the romantic relationship between writer Christopher Isherwood and painter Don Bachardy. The filmmakers utilize interviews with Don himself, as well as personal documents belonging to Isherwood, in order to show how… More

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In Theaters
Aug 31, 2007 Wide
Zeitgeist Films

Critic Reviews

  • Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

    Despite an age difference of 30 years, their connection was immediately electric; their first kiss, the story goes, broke a window.

  • J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

    Surprisingly, this 2007 documentary about their 34-year relationship becomes more engrossing as its focus shifts from Isherwood to Bachardy...

  • Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune

    There's a bit of Pygmalion meets The Portrait of Dorian Gray to it, and yet part of the documentary's slyness involves probing those aspects while never losing sight of the pain and glories of any emotional relationship that lasts as long as

  • Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

    With delectable-looking home movies of the couple's travels in California and Europe, Chris and Don offers an intimate portrayal of a passionate, enduring association, as well as a social history of postwar life.

  • David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle

    Santi and Mascara are right to call their film A Love Story, because this is the portrait of a marriage as full and enviable as the greatest unions in literature.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

  • Walter M


    [font=Century Gothic]"Chris & Don: A Love Story" is a touching documentary about the decades-long relationship between writer Christopher Isherwood(1904-1986) and Don Bachardy who met in 1952 when Bachardy was only 18 and stayed together until Isherwood's death.… More

  • Alec B


    More than anything its just a sweet story about two people terribly in love with each other. Without overstating it, the film shows that all people regardless or sex, class, race, or sexual orientation all go through the same things in relationships. I would have liked a more in depth… More

  • Sunil J


    This was a very well-made documentary but I did feel a bit uncomfortable about Chris and Don's relationship - not so much the age difference itself but the fact that it began at 16 and 46.

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