critics consensus

Darkly funny and impressively ambitious, Chained for Life is as unpredictable as it is original. Read critic reviews

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Movie Info

An actress bonds with a young man who has a severe facial deformity.

Genre:

drama
Original Language:

English
Director:

Aaron Schimberg
Producer:

Daniel Patrick Carbone, Vanessa McDonnell, Matthew Petock, Dan Schoenbrun, Zachary Shedd
Writer:

Aaron Schimberg
Release Date (Theaters):

Sep 11, 2019 limited
Release Date (Streaming):

Dec 10, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA):

$17.4K
Runtime:

1h 31m

Cast & Crew

Jess Weixler
Mabel

Adam Pearson
Rosenthal

Stephen Plunkett
Max

Charlie Korsmo
Herr Director

Sari Lennick
Sarah

Daniel Gilchrist
Demby

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News & Interviews for Chained for Life

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Critic Reviews for Chained for Life

All Critics (51) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (51)

[A] wonky, charming satire...

October 27, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Simran Hans
Observer (UK)
A sharp movie about moviemaking, with welcome surreal touches that are best left unspoiled.

October 24, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Josh Slater-Williams
Little White Lies
This low-budget film written and directed by Aaron Schimberg is almost every kind of strange, and yet it has an amiable warmth and an inexhaustible reserve of originality that make it compelling as hell.

October 24, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Leslie Felperin
Guardian
Anchored by Weixler's and Pearson's natural charm, "Chained for Life" stands up as both a quiet ode to the experimental, dreamlike spirit of moviemaking and a seriocomic corrective to sentimentalized sideshow portrayals.

October 18, 2019 | Full Review…

Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times
If the point of Tod Browning's Freaks was that it's what's inside that makes someone a monster, Chained for Life finds that everyone is awkward, everyone sees their own flaws, and everybody is just somebody.

October 3, 2019 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Richard Whittaker
Austin Chronicle
Chained for Life's genius is in its playfulness, and in [director Aarpm] Schimberg's vision, lucid but disorienting, insistent that there be no boundary between the movie we're watching and the movie - movies? - his characters are making.

September 23, 2019 | Full Review…

K. Austin Collins
Vanity Fair
The film works as both an affectionate movie-industry comedy (with references to Franju and 'Freaks') and as a provocative inquiry into the parameters of onscreen 'representation.'

June 22, 2020 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Chained is more than a bit of a scathing indictment of Hollywood portrayals of anyone with a disability or who doesn't conform to traditional matinee idol looks...and cinematic mindfuckery to boot.

April 25, 2020 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Frank J. Avella
Edge Media Network
[A] character driven film that may feel a bit slow but has a decent pay-off for those it will touch and work for in the end.

April 11, 2020 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Emilie Black
Cinema Crazed
Although this film raised some very important topics, it continued on its journey as a self-reflexive movie within a movie. Independently, this is an interesting risk to take...

February 23, 2020 | Full Review…

Allie Loukas
Battle Royale With Cheese
He's crafted something wholly unique as it navigates the serious and meaningful as deftly as it does the darkly funny and creepy.

December 20, 2019 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Lisa Trifone
Third Coast Review
For all its laudable ambition, however, it eventually becomes a bit bogged down in its own meta-ingenuity.

November 11, 2019 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

David Parkinson
Radio Times