Raising Victor Vargas Reviews
April 25, 2003
A gritty but sweet look at young love and family dynamics.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
April 25, 2003
As fresh -- and as restorative -- as a lemon ice on a hot day.
April 25, 2003
A wonderfully engaging movie.
Original Score: A-
April 25, 2003
Succeeds where 100 studio-generated teen romances ... have failed.
April 24, 2003
One of those rare films that touches the heart even as it tweaks the funny bone.
Original Score: 3/4
April 18, 2003
It's the kind of movie you know you can trust, and you give yourself over to affection for these characters who are so lovingly observed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
April 18, 2003
The R rating is understandable, but absurd. This is a family film in the most complicated and, ultimately, most cheering sense.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
April 17, 2003
Both intimate and universal, the film ripples with little human moments we've all lived, whether or not we were raised on Manhattan's poor Lower East Side.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
April 17, 2003
His film may be something of a beautiful lie, but what's true about Sollett's characters is that their dreams, their grace and their struggles are as real as it gets.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
April 14, 2003
Raising Victor Vargas gets everything just right.
April 9, 2003
The writer-director, Peter Sollett, cast the film with kids from his own neighborhood, who give themselves over to the camera with a spirit of improvised play that morphs into vivid, layered acting.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
April 2, 2003
A modest and tightly focused picture, and its very directness makes it piercingly intimate.
March 30, 2003
A comedy in the best sense -- it draws its life from the pitch-perfect authenticity of its characters.
March 28, 2003
What lifts Sollett's film above the run-of-the-mill boy-meets-girl tale is its genuine sweetness and Sollett's ability to effect a striking authenticity.
Original Score: 3/4
March 26, 2003
Mr. Sollett's accomplishment is the film's matter-of-fact solidity; he makes you wonder what his creations are doing when they're off screen.
Original Score: 4.5/5
March 25, 2003
Tender and funny.
March 21, 2003
A coming-of-age movie that really nails it.
Original Score: 3/4
February 1, 2003
Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas is a tenderhearted evocation of a young Latino's conflicts with girls and his own stubborn family.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
October 2, 2002
Frank and funny treatise on adolescence.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
September 18, 2002
Sollett reminds you of what it is like to be 16.