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My Friend Dahmer opens a window into the making of a serial killer whose conclusions are as empathetic as they are deeply troubling.
All Critics (96) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (83) | Rotten (13) | DVD (1)
Although My Friend Dahmer does not resolve the impossible question of 'nature vs nurture', it approaches it with a humanity that is too often missing from such stories. Jul 3, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Although My Friend Dahmer does not resolve the impossible question of 'nature vs nurture', it approaches it with a humanity that is too often missing from such stories.
Elena Lazic
Isn't there something pathological about the way we privilege the pathological? If you can stomach the focus of My Friend Dahmer, you'll find this rewarding. Jun 9, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Isn't there something pathological about the way we privilege the pathological? If you can stomach the focus of My Friend Dahmer, you'll find this rewarding.
Charlotte O'Sullivan
There's a hint of retrospective guilt here and you could question Backderf's morals, and by extension those of Meyers, for profiting from telling a murderer's origin story. Jun 1, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
There's a hint of retrospective guilt here and you could question Backderf's morals, and by extension those of Meyers, for profiting from telling a murderer's origin story.
Ed Potton
Ross Lynch is eerily good as Dahmer, like a very young Philip Seymour Hoffman - stolidly silent, heavy-footed, incubating his resentments. May 31, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Ross Lynch is eerily good as Dahmer, like a very young Philip Seymour Hoffman - stolidly silent, heavy-footed, incubating his resentments.
Peter Bradshaw
Meyers makes "My Friend Dahmer" a convincing high school drama, but his portrait of the serial killer as a young man telegraphs Dahmer's future all too clearly. Nov 16, 2017 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…
Meyers makes "My Friend Dahmer" a convincing high school drama, but his portrait of the serial killer as a young man telegraphs Dahmer's future all too clearly.
Pat Padua
My Friend Dahmer is at its most provocative when it considers this dynamic between the exploiters and the exploited. In making Dahmer feel like a freak, did the boys push him over the edge into a murderous contempt for all people? Nov 16, 2017 | Full Review…
My Friend Dahmer is at its most provocative when it considers this dynamic between the exploiters and the exploited. In making Dahmer feel like a freak, did the boys push him over the edge into a murderous contempt for all people?
Ben Sachs
We eagerly disappear inside a perfectly decorated 1970's living room in order to catch a glimpse of this slow moving train as it inevitably derails. Apr 9, 2019 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
We eagerly disappear inside a perfectly decorated 1970's living room in order to catch a glimpse of this slow moving train as it inevitably derails.
Kimberley Elizabeth
A complex and absorbing portrait of a teenager just about to take the leap into infamy. Feb 12, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
A complex and absorbing portrait of a teenager just about to take the leap into infamy.
Louise Burrell
It is only our foreknowledge of what Jeffrey will become that allows us to register all the early warning signs, right down to Joyce's edict.., heavily ironised for the viewer by the weight of future history: "New house rule: we eat our mistakes." Feb 4, 2019 | Full Review…
It is only our foreknowledge of what Jeffrey will become that allows us to register all the early warning signs, right down to Joyce's edict.., heavily ironised for the viewer by the weight of future history: "New house rule: we eat our mistakes."
Anton Bitel
My Friend Dahmer excels by going beyond a simple examination of Jeff Dahmer. Meyers' script doesn't excuse or condone Jeff's behaviour, but it doesn't shy away from the broader social circumstances that contributed to his isolation and despair Feb 2, 2019 | Full Review…
My Friend Dahmer excels by going beyond a simple examination of Jeff Dahmer. Meyers' script doesn't excuse or condone Jeff's behaviour, but it doesn't shy away from the broader social circumstances that contributed to his isolation and despair
Joe Lipsett
Lynch's fellow Disney alum Zac Efron is set to play Ted Bundy in the upcoming drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile... It's anyone's guess as to whether or not that movie will spin as intricate, alluring and unique a web as Meyers's film. Dec 26, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Lynch's fellow Disney alum Zac Efron is set to play Ted Bundy in the upcoming drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile... It's anyone's guess as to whether or not that movie will spin as intricate, alluring and unique a web as Meyers's film.
Samuel R. Murrian
What's impressive is despite the film's huge subtextual residue (Dahmer's future serial killer status), Meyers still wraps it all up in a cogent dramatic and visual framework. Dec 15, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
What's impressive is despite the film's huge subtextual residue (Dahmer's future serial killer status), Meyers still wraps it all up in a cogent dramatic and visual framework.
PJ Nabarro
A very interesting character study that does a fine job building a nuanced portrait of a high school outcast prior to becoming a famous serial killer, and it benefits from some good performances and a nice amount of subtlety that is essential for a film like this to work.
Super Reviewer
An excellent character story about a truly awful character. This is a very difficult subject matter to tackle, but Marc Meyers does an excellent job picking the right tone and frame of reference to study one of America's most notorious serial killers. Ross Lynch also does an excellent job in the role, and had a highly competent supporting cast. I suspect most people have a memory / feeling of that moment when they are dreaming and the austere sensation hits where their dream shifts into something more sinister. This is that moment before you fall, get caught or whatever nightmare you want to insert here. My Friend Dahmer lives in that space for a full hour or more. You watch this movie naturally tense, this sort of subject matter always starts with an uneasy sense of place and time. This film does a great job of sharing a glimpse into the impulses, motivations and spiral of events that molded one of history's worst. I think this movie really succeeds because it is not an apologist piece, a macabre stint into the grotesque, or the usual trapping some of these films fall in to. The film does not really revel in any particular aspect of Dahmer's life. It feels so genuinely real, and perhaps that makes it all the more impactful.
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