Metacritic reviews

Desert Flower tells a rags-to-riches story, but it plays like two stories in conflict. Everything involving Waris in Africa or in London before her success feels true and heartfelt. Many later details are badly handled.

Luckily, her cast makes up for the lapses, and Kebede is especially effective at showing how triumph over culturally sanctioned brutality remains a tentative prospect at best.

A lovely performance by Ethiopian supermodel-actress Liya Kebede as supermodel-activist Waris Dirie works wonders to elevate this uneven, occasionally awkward but often absorbing film.

The broad comedy clashes with the movie's final message: that 6,000 girls face genital mutilation every day.

The film proves a gripping, if uneven, cinematic journey.

Suffers from a lack of focus and a sitcom script.

More earnest than agile, the whole thing smacks of heavy-handed authorial jiggering-never mind that it's based on a true story.