Elizabeth Weitzman

Tomatometer-approved critic

Publications: Film.com, Village Voice, New York Daily News, TheWrap, Culture Trip

movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
	89%	Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019)	We learn that "everything in this film is strictly based on the available facts." If you appreciate the passive aggression of that deceptively mild "available," this is definitely the movie for you. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 26, 2019
	81%	The Invisibles (2019)	Räfle's docudrama approach comes with the risk of disjointed storytelling. But he handles each element with a sure hand, bringing us both a fascinating documentary and a suspenseful drama. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 23, 2019
	38%	State Like Sleep (2019)	Does a fine job of recreating the dream-like fog of grief. But it doesn't go much further, and "somnolence" isn't an ideal quality around which to build an entire film. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 3, 2019
	85%	Dumplin' (2018)	This is a generous movie, and an unrepentant fantasy at that, so it's hard not to meet it with openheartedness. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 17, 2018
	99%	They Shall Not Grow Old (2019)	By thoughtfully employing cutting-edge technology, Jackson has instead created an essential portal connecting audiences of the present to his subjects in the past. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 13, 2018
	50%	Postcards From London (2018)	But self-consciousness is not the same thing as self-awareness. And in a movie overflowing with the former and lacking in the latter, Jim primarily becomes an inadvertent symbol of narcissism and superficiality. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 1, 2018
	37%	Hunter Killer (2018)	You know those DVDs that sit in a giant Wal-Mart bin? The kinds of movies usually dumped unceremoniously into theaters in January, and maybe if you're going stir-crazy you take a chance and find yourself happily surprised? Hunter Killer is one of those. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 25, 2018
	36%	Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)	If you're determined to recycle one of his characters, wouldn't the beloved Mr. Bean or Blackadder make more sense than a James Bond parody made up for British credit card ads? At the very least, doesn't he, and don't his fans, deserve better material? - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 25, 2018
	77%	Mid90s (2018)	Hill envisions these endless days with a kid's-eye abstraction that's both timeless and firmly entrenched in its own era: his skate punks banter like Kevin Smith extras, wander like Richard Linklater dreamers, and misbehave like Larry Clark lost boys. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 18, 2018
	88%	The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)	Though Gyllenhaal is all-in on this complex character study, it's in an admirably subtle way. She never once overplays Lisa's precarious emotional state, choosing instead to portray a rather ordinary woman doing some rather extraordinary things. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 10, 2018
	93%	Private Life (2018)	It's about love, and pain, and marriage, and friendship, and family. And it's also about enduring, about picking yourself up over and over and over, in the eternal hope that something beautiful is waiting around the corner. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2018
	30%	Little Women (2018)	The girls in this contemporary retelling are not messy and complex human beings but Hallmark Channel characters, two-dimensional symbols of virtuous nostalgia. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 27, 2018
	87%	Colette (2018)	As a traditional period biopic, it checks all the boxes in fine fashion, but you'd never know it was inspired by a woman whose life was expansive and contradictory and unwieldy in the extreme. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 21, 2018
	86%	The Land of Steady Habits (2018)	No detail ever seems to go unnoticed in Holofcener's world, and viewers could spend the entire running time simply admiring her powers of surveillance. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 13, 2018
	60%	Operation Finale (2018)	Kingsley isn't an ideal match for the mild-mannered murderer who inspired Hannah Arendt to coin the phrase "the banality of evil." But like the rest of the cast, he holds our attention even when the movie buckles under the burden of earnest intentions. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 22, 2018
	87%	Madeline's Madeline (2018)	By pushing to the edges of her own iconoclastic vision, director Josephine Decker touches on universal truths rarely found inside a multiplex. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 10, 2018
	87%	The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)	It's hard to think of a more highly-charged topic than the brainwashing of vulnerable adolescents in the name of God, so it's certainly to Akhavan's credit that she uses such a determinedly understated style. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2018
	58%	Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)	Where the first film tapped into the Internet's unavoidable underbelly -- cyberbullies, trolls, obsessive FOMO -- the second never settles on a persuasive POV. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 18, 2018
	100%	Leave No Trace (2018)	Granik is a strikingly observational director, and she takes great care to avoid leading viewers in any direction. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 20, 2018
	89%	Love, Gilda (2018)	Most crucially, D'Apolito allows her subject to guide the story from start to finish. Radner's gentle spirit and wise observations connect each chapter, bringing us into her life with an unusual intimacy. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 30, 2018
	87%	All About Nina (2018)	Though the material isn't quite ready for prime time, Winstead once again proves herself a major player. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 23, 2018
	81%	Where Is Kyra? (2018)	That we watch the ticking moments of Where Is Kyra? with so much concern is a testament to the filmmakers and cast determined to elevate her unnoticed life. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2018
	75%	The Long Dumb Road (2018)	Mantzoukas and Revolori are ideally cast, bouncing off each other with a salty-sweet chemistry that's as natural as it is entertaining. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 14, 2018
	67%	Golden Exits (2018)	But to what end? Bergman, Cassavetes, and Allen excavated this material decades ago, and there are no new insights uncovered amid the interior lives of these husbands and wives. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 8, 2018
	98%	In Between (2018)	Hamoud deftly mixes both the intimate and the enormous throughout, endowing vibrantly-shot, slice-of-life storytelling with an often wrenching depth. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 5, 2018
	95%	Foxtrot (2018)	The combination of straightforward realism, deadpan surrealism, historical horror and domestic tragedy is harrowingly impactful. It's as if Maoz realized that a single, sustained tone couldn't possibly do justice to the vastness of the subject. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 7, 2017
	87%	Novitiate (2017)	When Novitiate retains its focus, it ventures towards some interesting answers. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 26, 2017
	92%	Human Flow (2017)	Ai is intent on contrasting the intimate with the intimidating. The sheer mass, the never-ending flow, threatens to overwhelm us. And that, one suspects, is the decisive point. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 13, 2017
	48%	My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)	Like its television predecessor, is all dressed up in bubbles and cupcakes and rainbows. But it's so jam-packed with rousing girl power, it passes the Bechdel Test with (literally) flying colors. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 5, 2017
	96%	The Florida Project (2017)	Sean Baker's beautiful heartbreaker scratches just below the cheery lilac and bubblegum pink to expose the layers of privation festering in this sunshiny state. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2017
	78%	Last Flag Flying (2017)	Every theme is overtly defined, every subject dissected until it dissolves. Conversations turn into speeches; references are hit hard. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 28, 2017
	56%	The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)	While parents may miss the second-level smarts of its predecessors, kids should fall right into the fun. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 20, 2017
	71%	Dayveon (2017)	Abbasi has elicited outstanding performances from his entirely-amateur cast, who infuse both authenticity and professionalism into their roles. And it's impossible to remain unmoved by the many contrasts he carefully arranges. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 11, 2017
	84%	The Final Year (2018)	Under the current circumstances, Barker has given us a film with much broader appeal, one that's not only absorbing but also essential in its depiction of humane, responsible leadership. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 8, 2017
	83%	Patti Cake$ (2017)	The description makes Patti Cake$ sound like a pretty typical Sundance crowd pleaser. Which, technically, it is. But what sets it apart from other overpraised festival indies is its tremendously gifted lead. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2017
	40%	Chronically Metropolitan (2017)	The best way to watch is to think of it as a parody of a particularly pretentious brand of indie romance. Unfortunately, director Xavier Manrique and writer Nicholas Schutt play it so solemnly straight that it seems unlikely they're aiming for satire. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2017
	79%	An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017)	It's all fascinating and terrifying and inspiring and essential. And at each stop, we're left wanting to know more. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2017
	90%	Girls Trip (2017)	We're in it for the ride, the company, and the pure pleasure of watching these women, and the actresses playing them, embrace an independence Hollywood doles out too grudgingly. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 12, 2017
	44%	Rough Night (2017)	Yes, it'll remind you of countless other movies, from Weekend at Bernie's and Very Bad Things to Bachelorette and Bridesmaids. But if you take it on its own merits, you may wind up glad you saw it. - Culture Trip EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 22, 2017
	91%	Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (2017)	Its intentions are ultimately stronger than its execution, but you're likely to pay a lot more attention to White House press briefings after watching it. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 19, 2017
	37%	Snatched (2017)	The Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn dream team deserved a better Mother's Day outing than Snatched. - Culture Trip EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 5, 2017
	93%	Wonder Woman (2017)	Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg have created an unassailable icon, one who fits into the pantheon with ease, and stands out like no other. - Culture Trip EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 5, 2017
	75%	The Incomparable Rose Hartman (2017)	Mass makes good use of Hartman's archival images, keeping things flowing with a steady stream of glittery nostalgia. But what's especially interesting is the striking ambivalence of her peers. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 2, 2017
	86%	Megan Leavey (2017)	The filmmakers use the same restrained patience to build a touching connection between Megan and Rex. Soon, it seems perfectly reasonable that an emotionally isolated soldier would consider a German shepherd to be her one true soul mate. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted May 30, 2017
	57%	Lowriders (2017)	Mexican-American culture isn't merely draped over the story as an added element but woven throughout with a casual practicality that respects both the primary characters and their shot-on-location East L.A. setting. - TheWrap EDIT Read More \| Posted May 11, 2017
3/4	70%	The Housemaid (2011)	Im Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jaIm Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jarring and operatic cult favorite. Still, he does tweak the themes in intriguing fashion. - New York Daily News EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2016
2/4	68%	Mumbai Diaries (2011)	Nearly every element of Rao's debut is uneven. But her passionate vision of so much useless prejudice leaves a lingering impact. - New York Daily News EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2016
3/5	63%	All The Wilderness (2015)	First-time writer/director Michael Johnson falls back on coming-of-age clichés. But overall, his sensitive, moody camerawork and the cast's strong performances go a long way toward making the familiar feel fresh. - New York Daily News EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 19, 2015
3/5	77%	Queen and Country (2015)	It works, but not entirely. - New York Daily News EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 18, 2015
3/5	72%	The DUFF (2015)	Most of the credit goes to Whitman, who stands in, and stands up, for the DUFF in all of us. - New York Daily News EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 18, 2015