Elizabeth Weitzman

Elizabeth Weitzman
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications: Film.com, Village Voice, New York Daily News, TheWrap, Culture Trip

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
72% The World to Come (2020) Historical lesbian love stories have become an increasingly prolific genre... and this one doesn't strike much new ground as a romance. But it's haunting as a portrait of a marriage trapped in amber, each partner screaming silently inside themselves. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 3, 2021
69% Land (2021) [F]or anyone unable to leave the confines of their own home or neighborhood right now, "Land" offers simple lessons and stunning landscapes that may feel like a welcome balm. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2021
69% A Glitch in the Matrix (2021) Ascher leaves us pondering the costs of dissociation, but also its seductive appeal. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2021
83% There Is No 'I' in Threesome (2021) [A]lthough the movie concerns itself with love and sexuality, its true subjects are vulnerability, trust and self-knowledge. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2021
57% R#J (2021) Twenty-five years ago, Baz Luhrmann's MTV-influenced "Romeo + Juliet" taught young audiences that Shakespeare's themes and talent are truly eternal. But it's tough to get invested in a romance between two people more interested in likes than love. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2021
75% Palmer (2021) Palmer is, in every sense of the word, decent. It's familiar, and predictable, and a little bit hokey. But it's also genuinely moving and surprisingly memorable, thanks to its two leads. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 28, 2021
4/5 73% Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010) Serkis is such a live wire that the supporting actors (Olivia Williams, Naomie Harris, Ray Winstone) can do little but stand back in awe. It's the rare instance where such admiration is earned. - New York Daily News EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2020
2.5/4 67% Babies (2010) The kids are absolutely charming, and each scene is beautifully shot. But there is no narrative thread, and the minimal social observations are blindingly obvious. - New York Daily News EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2020
100% Slay the Dragon (2020) For those who don't feel up to facing more bad news, there is some hope here in the form of citizen activists doing all they can. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 2, 2020
89% Banana Split (2020) Plenty of viewers are likely to nod when April googles "anxiety vs actual heart attack," while this critic was fully onboard from the moment she righteously refuses to serve a customer a hot dog at her movie theater concession job. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 25, 2020
90% The Booksellers (2020) Pays warm-hearted tribute to the reading, but also the shopping, the rifling, the obsessing, the complaining, the dreaming, the list-making, the shelf-organizing, and everything else book-lovers love to do. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 5, 2020
95% First Cow (2020) While it fits perfectly into the larger framework of Reichardt's filmography, it also stands alone in rare, iconoclastic beauty. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 4, 2020
99% Saint Frances (2020) The pacing is slow and the suburban-Chicago imagery feels deceptively ordinary, but the memorably empathetic depictions of everyday joys and pain are most often found in the connections between people. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 26, 2020
60% You Go to My Head (2020) The more opportunities director-producer-co-writer de Clercq takes to shoot Belgian model Delfine Bafort in various states of languorous undress, the more it starts to feel like we're watching a vanity wish-fulfillment fantasy. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 14, 2020
79% Buffaloed (2020) Had the movie gone all-in on Peg's amorality, we might have had a more interesting project. Had Peg shown some nuanced vulnerability or awareness, we might have had a more likable one. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 13, 2020
89% Earth (Erde) (2019) Though Geyrhalter shoots from seemingly every angle, the cinematography itself is equally clinical. This leads to a harshly striking - and strikingly harsh - tableau, which aptly reflects his intentions. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 6, 2020
93% Whirlybird (2020) Yoka spent six years sifting through and digitizing Bob's archives, and even he may have been surprised to find that the micro story winds up being stronger than the macro one. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2020
93% Possessor: Uncut (2020) So well crafted that it's likely to make a lot of other Sundance films feel relatively amateurish. But as both writer and director, Cronenberg focuses so intently on the surface that he neglects to include enough substance. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2020
67% The Wave (2020) Klabin seems to be speaking directly to midnight movie fans, stoners who love hearing about other people's dreams, and Justin Long completists. Outside that particular demographic, this frenetic trip may wind up feeling more like an exhausting slog. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 16, 2020
100% The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (2020) Despite some grim ecological statistics and a conservationist message, the movie is so inspirational it feels like the sort of old-fashioned family film that can now be excavated on Disney+. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 9, 2020
38% Black Christmas (2019) If you're intrigued to hear that Riki Lindhome of Garfunkel and Oates has refashioned "Up on the Housetop" into a jaw-dropping rape-culture callout, this is the movie for you. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2019
68% Bombshell (2019) They didn't want to leave anyone out, and they didn't want to make anyone mad. As a result, a genuinely explosive story never detonates with the force it should. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 9, 2019
89% The Two Popes (2019) Given that the film and its title are inspired by actual events, it would be no spoiler to reveal where this path is leading. But there is so much artistry in the unexpected ways the journey is plotted that viewers ought to experience them firsthand. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 27, 2019
95% Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (2019) It's certainly curious that the first people to be interviewed in a movie about a former Communist activist are her chauffeur, secretary, and caretaker. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 14, 2019
52% Charlie's Angels (2019) The real asset Banks brings to the movie, though, is her own perspective. She builds the whole project on a scaffolding of sisterhood that feels so natural, it highlights Hollywood's historic failures in this regard. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 12, 2019
100% Good Girls Get High (2019) Cynicism often curdles movies of this kind, but director Laura Terruso, who co-wrote the script with Jennifer Nashorn Blankenship, underscores each scene with sweetness. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 7, 2019
63% The Good Liar (2019) The film really wants to be either a thriller or a caper. Unfortunately, it has neither the excitement necessary for the former nor the fun required of the latter. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Nov 7, 2019
97% The Kingmaker (2019) Marcos innately understands the importance of image, but she seems to have underestimated her inquisitor, who uses well-chosen historic footage and powerfully-edited interviews with other Filipinos to gradually expand the canvas. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 30, 2019
88% Synonyms (Synonymes) (2019) Filmmaker and subject also share a disdain for restraint, shouting and jostling to ensure we've gotten their point. But while their parallel passions aren't exactly subtle, they do make their mark. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2019
81% Greener Grass (2019) The repetition can start to feel overdone, but the best jokes are acutely-crafted and sold with impressive deadpan by DeBoer, Carden and Bennett. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 17, 2019
19% Jexi (2019) Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have figured out how to modernize one of the most traditional and apparently still essential Hollywood tropes: the Crazy Bitch. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 11, 2019
71% Wrinkles the Clown (2019) What Nichols finds is promising, but because of the way the movie is structured, the reveal feels like a murky cheat. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2019
88% Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) What starts out feeling inspirational threatens, at some points, to tip into disheartening conformity. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2019
42% Vita & Virginia (2019) Because Arterton portrays Vita with an almost adolescent superficiality, her fixation on Virginia never feels like more than a conquest, or a rung to be climbed on the literary ladder. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2019
63% Driven (2019) A joyride more interested in the journey than in any significant destination. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 15, 2019
49% Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) Not an ideal match for the source material, but those who arrive without any preconceptions - or are willing to stray from the novel's style - will appreciate the assets of a modestly engaging and gently touching dramedy. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 14, 2019
100% Vision Portraits (2019) Evans intersperses his own experience with those of three others, finding comforting commonalities and essential differences. The result is artistically uneven in structure but emotionally powerful throughout. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 7, 2019
64% The Mountain (2019) Probably best suited for the sort of on-a-loop side room you'd find in a modern art museum, where it could endlessly challenge viewers but give curious wanderers a quick way out if they've had enough. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 25, 2019
93% Sword of Trust (2019) As with all of Shelton's improv-inspired movies, the plot offers plenty of interest but the personalities provide the purpose. She chooses her actors very carefully, and then lets them loose to explore, expand, or ignore the script. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 11, 2019
65% Annabelle Comes Home (2019) Annabelle seems to be on the same shoot-it-all-in-a-day schedule as Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. None of them appear in more than a few scenes, preferring to set things up and then let a cast of (admittedly appealing) unknowns take over. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 24, 2019
63% Child's Play (2019) The movie's biggest strength is its balance between mordant humor and psychological fear. Everyone's focus seems to be in a very old-fashioned place, and here that's an asset. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2019
88% Mouthpiece (2019) Ultimately, the filmmakers' intention isn't to throw us off but to invite us in, to encourage us to wonder: Is it really so strange for one woman to have two reactions to life? - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted May 30, 2019
90% Framing John DeLorean (2019) Most compelling of all are the interviews with the two people who come closest to answering, or at least addressing, the question that overwhelms this entire project: DeLorean's daughter Kathryn and son Zach. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted May 1, 2019
86% Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019) Michael Wadleigh's seminal 1970 documentary was immersive and electric, a definitive, you-are-there experience rather than a here's-what-happened chronicle. This Woodstock is a here's-what happened chronicle. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted May 1, 2019
89% You Don't Nomi (2020) All power to the director and his sources for seeing more than most of us do. But skeptics are unlikely to be converted by quotes that tend to be either generic or overstated. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 29, 2019
30% Red Joan (2019) Cookson is very good, but she's too often left to perform in a vacuum. Lindsay Shapero's script - based on Jennie Rooney's novel - neglects to build in the tension Cookson clearly aims to generate. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2019
70% Stockholm (2019) Stockholm is no Dog Day Afternoon, but if you're willing to take the movie for what it really is - a fairly generic caper inspired by, rather than based on, actual events - you'll find just enough to appreciate. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 10, 2019
98% Working Woman (2019) Feels very contemporary, but will also resonate with generations of viewers who recognize the many small moments that lead up to and follow its quietly wrenching central experience. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 26, 2019
93% Light from Light (2019) A movie this modest requires patience and generosity and a rejection of expectations...But it is a gem likely to stay with anyone smart enough to seek it out. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 19, 2019
86% The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) Exhibiting a dexterity that suggests far more extensive directorial experience, Ejiofor proves himself a master of impact. His visual approach is expansive and evocative, thanks also to the fine work of cinematographer Dick Pope. - TheWrap EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2019