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Dark Matter
EMAILPRINTFirst Independent Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Billy Shebar
Directed by: Chen Shi-Zheng
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 11, 2008
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for a scene of violence, brief sexual content and language
Starring Liu Ye, Meryl Streep, and Aidan Quinn
Liu Xing is a Chinese science student pursuing a PhD in the US in the early 1990s. Driven by ambition yet unable to navigate academic politics, Liu Xing is inexorably pushed to the margins of American life until he loses his way. Liu Xing arrives at a big Western university with plans to study the origins of the universe. In the beginning, everything is looking up. He finds other Chinese students to share a cheap apartment with him, and flirts with an attractive American girl who works in a local tea shop. When the head of the department, Jacob Reiser, welcomes Liu Xing into his select cosmology group, it seems that only hard work stands between him and a bright future in American science. At an orientation for foreigners sponsored by a local church, Joanna Silver, a wealthy patron of the university, notices the earnest student, and an unspoken bond forms between them. Liu Xing becomes Reiser's protege, accompanying him to a prestigious conference where he makes an impressive debut. He is drawn to the study of dark matter, an unseen substance that shapes the universe, but it soon becomes clear that his developing theories threaten the Reiser model. Excited by the possibility of a breakthrough, Liu Xing is deaf to warnings that he must first pay his dues. Soon he is eclipsed within the department by Laurence, a more dutiful Chinese student, and is forced to go behind Reiser's back to publish his discoveries. When his article draws ire instead of accolades, Liu Xing turns to Joanna, who naively encourages him on his collision course. Liu Xing clings to the idea of American science as a free market of ideas, and of American society as wide open to immigrants. But in the end, his dissertation is rejected, and the girl in the tea shop brushes him off. His roommates find jobs, leaving him behind. Too proud to accept help from Joanna and unwilling to return home to his parents, Liu Xing becomes a ghostlike presence at the university. Left alone with his shattered dreams, he explodes in a final act of violence. (First Independent Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Maureen M. Hart
The film does a fine job of displaying the contrasts between these tense, formalized Chinese students and the faux populist American academics.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
First-time director Chen Shi-Zheng shows great sensitivity to the pressure and isolation felt by Chinese brains at American universities, and the relationship between Liu and Quinn provides a rare look at the intellectual serfdom of graduate study.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Dark Matter, with its view of cutthroat politics and competing egos inside a university, is also laudable in its refusal to soft-pedal the viciously petty side of the academic fishbowl.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Zack Haddad
This is a great film, to a point. Unfortunately the ending doesn't deliver, making the entire feature an exercise is wasted potential. But maybe that's the point.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Director Chen Shi-Zheng's film has a graceful energy, and three strong performances help make this serene drama - and its shocking conclusion - quietly moving.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Chen Shi-Zheng, well regarded as an opera and theater director, makes his feature film debut.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The final act of Dark Matter is grim but unconvincing, and the shortfall leaves an ugly, exploitive taste in your mouth.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
An unsatisfying drama that premiered at Sundance '07 and was supposedly delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
Never fully succeeds in burrowing under its protagonist's skin, despite conspicuous effort.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
Liu Ye is too inexpressive for his role's demands, and the movie doesn't build to his downfall: It just zaps itself there.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Dark Matter has neither the technical command of an art-house film nor the manufactured intensity of a grade-B thriller, yet it's also too cheap and dirty to feel like a Hollywood-scale drama.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
It’s hard to ask for juicier, or more timely, subject matter than high-pressure academic ambition turning violent, but to map the descent of a genius into madness isn’t a task to be taken lightly.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
It is easy to see the film as two movies crammed together, neither of them being very good.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
First-time filmmaker Shi-Zheng Chen shows little aptitude for accurately transcribing the textures of human interaction; there's not a single credible performance here, not excluding Meryl Streep as a faculty Sinophile, doing that thing where she grinds every line through a gauntlet of tremulous inflections.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci
If only it weren't based on a true story. It might have been a good movie.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
