Crazy Love

TV Guide Ken Fox

Of the long list of couples who have loved neither wisely nor particularly well, few have such power to disturb as Burton Pugach and the love of his life, Linda Riss.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The enthralling documentary Crazy Love is about how a high-flying lawyer's obsession with a young beauty blinded her, metaphorically and literally.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Dan Klores's astonishing film is about a subject so bizarre it could only work as a documentary – as a drama, it would be dismissed as being too far-fetched.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The tale itself is so spectacularly perverse, and the film stays so authentically close to the personalities involved, that you don't feel dirty -- you feel cleansed.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

For those who don't believe that truth trumps fiction for whacked-out depravity, mark this shockingly fierce and funny spellbinder as Exhibit A.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Crazy Love doesn't downplay the awfulness of what happened , but it also knows a good media circus when it sees one.

Film Threat Mark Bell

All told, Crazy Love is a rarity in documentaries; it's fun.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It takes some time to realize we're in a maelstrom--going down down down into a saga of obsession, sadism, masochism, and codependency that was and remains one of the great, sick tabloid stories of all time.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

The movie's quirk isn't forced; it sincerely ponders the nature of love and of human need, opening with a quote by Jacques Lacan and ending with a shrug.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Love makes us do all kinds of crazy things, but in Crazy Love, crazy seems too mild a word.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The story is still so compelling - and the principals still so eager for attention - that the filmmaker's pedestrian treatment can't take away from the impact.

The New Yorker David Denby

One may be horrified by these two, or laugh at them, but both horror and laughter give way to amazement at the human talent for survival.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Formally, Klores film is a standard-issue documentary, combining period footage with talking-head interviews. But his talking heads are a hoot -- leathery, leisure-suited, foul-mouthed, larger-than-life characters, straight out of the Bronx by way of Palm Beach -- and their story is a Gothic yarn of obsession, crime and forgiveness.

Variety Dennis Harvey

While the competent filmmaking package lacks much of its own personality, the sheer fascinating strangeness of the people documented could earn the picture a minor cult following a la "Grey Gardens."

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

At one point, Klores thought about making a feature film out of the material, but it's a good thing he decided against it. You could not make this stuff up.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Klores and Stevens don't have much to work with visually besides talking heads, old photos, news clippings, and stock footage, but with a narrative this insane, that's more than enough.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Crazy Love is pulp non-fiction.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Pugach's selfishness, his inability to detach love from gratification, is the key to this crazy story.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In Crazy Love, friends of Burt and Linda express as much confusion over their relationship as we feel, and the Pugaches themselves make an unconvincing case for theirs being a love that conquered all. On the contrary, love doesn't seem to have had anything to do with them. She married him out of desperation, and he pursued her out of a sense of entitlement.

Village Voice Rob Nelson

However sick this tabloid star may be, Crazy Love is a celebrity doc by definition, with all its attendant trade-offs, and even the director admits that his access wasn't free.

Slate Dana Stevens

Though the subject matter sounds depressing, Crazy Love has an infectious, even bouncy tone.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

Romance has little to do with the bizarre tale, part true crime and part lonely-hearts drama, of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss. While the now elderly pair may have found some happiness, that absence is heartbreaking.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

There's plenty of black comedy in their twisted affair, but a more substantial documentary wouldn't leave you smiling.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Now, they're together. You can't look at them, but you can't look away either. So it goes.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

In the sense that everyone is interesting once their lives are sufficiently unpacked, Burt and Linda's story is not boring -- but beyond its tabloid sensationalism, it's not especially significant either.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Directed with little flair, a one-sided perspective and a questionable sense of moral responsibility by Dan Klores (his negligent lack of an editorial voice in the couple's lunacy reeks of train-wreck exploitation), Crazy Love is a disturbingly captivating tabloid horror, but that's not Klores' doing.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The overall vibe is morbidly entertaining, though something of a downer, partly because it's unclear if Mr. and Mrs. Pugach know that they are such sick puppies, partly because it's unclear if Mr. Klores cares that they are.

The Hollywood Reporter Sura Wood

Despite the inherent, shocking nature of the material, Dan Klores' narrowly focused, poorly paced documentary lacks a narrative thrust that could have made for a more compelling film.

San Francisco Chronicle Tamara Straus

It leaves one feeling queasy about human nature.