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The Exploding Girl (2009)

tomatometer

74

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 34
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 9

Its languid pace and willfully understated narrative may test the patience of some viewers, but Bradley Rust Gray's gentle direction and a gripping performance from Zoe Kazan lend The Exploding Girl an appealing, melancholy beauty.

80

Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 2

Its languid pace and willfully understated narrative may test the patience of some viewers, but Bradley Rust Gray's gentle direction and a gripping performance from Zoe Kazan lend The Exploding Girl an appealing, melancholy beauty.

audience

54

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 819

My Rating

Movie Info

Ivy (Zoe Kazan of Revolutionary Road) returns home to Brooklyn for her summer break from college. She misses her boyfriend, and calls him frequently, but they can't quite seem to connect. She spends a lot of time with her longtime friend, Al (Mark Rendall of 30 Days of Night). Al clearly has a longstanding crush on Ivy, about which he's never done anything, probably out of some combination of fear and respect for their friendship. His confusion is exacerbated when, due to family circumstances,

Unrated, 1 hr. 20 min.

Documentary, Drama

Bradley Rust Gray

Jul 1, 2010

Ocscilloscope Pictures

All Critics (35) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (9) | DVD (1)

The Exploding Girl is a film about the deceptiveness of surfaces, and it takes place in a small town that you eventually realize with a start is actually New York City.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Exploding Girl is a character study of one young woman - and of an entire generation struggling to maintain external maturity despite internal regression.

April 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Sometimes a carefully placed pinprick can stay with you longer than a heavier, clumsier blow, and so it is with Bradley Rust Gray's delicately done but indelible The Exploding Girl.

April 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Viewers willing to slow down their cinematic metabolism enough to watch The Exploding Girl at its own pace will find their patience rewarded by moments of great beauty...

March 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Gray has an artful, understated way of conveying what's going 
on inside, often simply by focusing his camera on Kazan. And the actress has a unique capacity for projecting the complexity of feminine stillness.

March 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | Comment
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is another dreary collaboration by husband-wife team Bradley Rust Gray and So Yong Kim, who have no idea what to do with a simple narrative.

March 17, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

...a mildly watchable showcase for Kazan's undeniably impressive performance.

November 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | Comment
Reel Film Reviews

Bradley Rust Gray's film of a young college student (Zoe Kazan) home for the summer is a portrait in interlude.

September 11, 2010 Full Review Source: Parallax View | Comment
Parallax View

Kazan has a power of her own that is as strong as or stronger than the film's style, and she can carry a scene all by herself, even if the camera is merely watching her walk down the street.

September 10, 2010 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

Kazan has a gift for letting you see her think, even when she's perfectly still; the film's title refers to the ferocious trauma happening between Ivy's ears and her silent struggle to keep it in check.

May 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

Restless audiences may itch for more plot, for the kind of fiery dramatics that typify young love in the movies, but hold the explosives: There's tender drama, too, in the possibilities of a hand-hold.

May 14, 2010 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

"The Exploding Girl" can be grouped with those dreaded "mumblecore" movies in which young people talk endlessly about their romantic entanglements and attend terrible parties.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Boston Herald | Comment
Boston Herald

At least director Bradley Rust Grey contains all this diverting dithering in 80 minutes -- even without an explosion, there's intrigue in watching a short fuse burn.

May 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | Comment
Boston Phoenix

This is a mature story about the lives of two young people (and one voice) that kept my attention from start to finish.

April 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

...a lovely, languorous film that does much with little and leaves you feeling like you've witnessed some minor miracle.

April 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

The Exploding Girl isn't a particularly plot driven film, but it has momentum, an undercurrent that tugs you along.

April 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | Comment
Entertainment Insiders

A Zen-like experience of watchful compassion in deliberately challenging circumstances: trying to see and hear, without leaping to conclusions, the gathering troubles of a young woman living in hectic circles and with increasing self-absorption.

April 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

Sit with it a while %u2014 which isn't hard when you're watching Kazan. The cumulative effect is powerful. You begin to feel for her even though you haven't even met.

March 31, 2010 Full Review Source: Moving Pictures Magazine | Comment
Moving Pictures Magazine

Indie down to its core , this dreary film fails to engage on many levels. The camera work is nice though, particularly when it's focused on pigeons.

March 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Back Stage | Comment
Back Stage
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Exploding Girl

A epileptic woman in a fizzling relationship considers romance with her longtime platonic friend.There are such long moments of silence in this film, the camera trained on Zoe Kazan's often impassive face through much of it, that it is easy to lose interest in the story and characters.As I watched the film, I thought

November 27, 2011
hunterjt13
Jim Hunter

Super Reviewer

In "The Exploding Girl," Ivy(Zoe Kazan) gets a ride from a college friend(Hunter Canning) and they collect her childhood friend Al(Mark Rendall) along the way to return home to New York City during spring break when it is very warm.(I know. I know. It was 70 degrees in the city yesterday and there was a long line at

March 21, 2010
Harlequin68
Walter M.

Super Reviewer

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