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Dear Wendy
Wellspring Media


7.8

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

It's All About Love

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Michael Angarano, Danso Gordon, Novella Nelson, Chris Owen, Alison Pill, and Mark Webber

Focusing on a group of young people in a poverty-stricken coal mining town somewhere in the American south-east, Dear Wendy is an audacious and stylish exploration of guns and violence in America. (Wellspring Media)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Lars von Trier
DIRECTED BY:	Thomas Vinterberg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 21, 2006 Theatrical: September 23, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	101 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Denmark / France / Germany / UK

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...

New York Post V.A. Musetto

A satirical blast at America's gun culture. But it's so entertaining that even a die-hard NRA member might be impressed.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

By the time this astute and entirely distinctive film is over, the folly of America's love affair with guns, past and present, is laid bare with the same inescapable force with which Gregg Araki exposed the horror of child molestation in "Mysterious Skin," a similarly poetic and deceptively affectless film.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Lars Von Trier's silly script about a group of pistol packing misfits gets better treatment than it deserves, thanks to a fine young cast and the game direction of Thomas Vinterberg.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

Part parable, part wild west shoot-out, yet totally original, Dear Wendy is a powerful indictment of American gun culture.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

When you have to ask yourself whether this parable is intended as comedic satire or stone-cold-serious moralizing, that's a big sign that you're watching a misfire.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Surreal, vaguely amusing, European-made drama.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Michael Posner

One part satire, two parts allegory, and several parts dreary sermon on the pernicious effects of America's gun culture.

Time Richard Corliss

Von Trier has a tendency to go overboard in his denunciations of American violence (Dogville). By contrast, Dear Wendy is a cogent, comprehensive take on the land and the films that obsess him.

Film Threat Jeremy Mathews

The film is challenging and consistently interesting, but also trite and overbearing to the extent that it damages its message.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Starts out as an inspired test case for the continued necessity of the Second Amendment, and only near the end does it lose some of its tightly concentrated focus.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It may sound like a Peter Pan spinoff, and Dear Wendy does involve lost boys in a stagey setting, but the film is closer to "A Clockwork Orange" than a tale of lasting youth.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Dear Wendy is absurd to the point of comic parody. Bloody as it is, it has no access to viewers' emotions, and its message - play with fire and you get burned - is too obvious to be provocative.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Taking wobbly aim at our country's complicated love affair with guns, the movie's the very definition of a cheap shot.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Its mad rush to offer shallow takes on every Big American Issue would be offensive if it weren't so misguided. It's almost cute the way Dear Wendy thinks it knows what it's talking about and then just keeps going and going long after it's stopped making sense.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A tedious exercise in style, intended as a meditation on guns and violence in America but more of a meditation on itself, the kind of meditation that invites the mind to stray.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Well made but unlikable and dramatically absurd picture.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Especially in the climactic, clumsily staged gunfight, the prevailing mode is wide-eyed idiocy--which might be the point, since von Trier's satirical target is the hypocrisy of (news flash!) America's eagerness to enforce stability and security with all guns blazing.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's not merely that Dear Wendy was shot on Danish and German locations that don't look quite right; it's that almost every decision made by the production designers is wrong, or at least discordant.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The protracted shoot-out at the end of Dear Wendy is even more pornographic than the moment when a female member of the Dandies exposes her breasts. The audience is clearly expected to enjoy the bloodbath even while it disapproves.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's a long slog, not because what the film says is provocative but because the technique is as slack as the writing.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's a diatribe from beginning to end.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The movie's smugness is insufferable.

Dallas Observer Staff (Not credited)

Is there anything more tedious than the guy who complains and complains about something he knows nothing about? Danish cinema auteur Lars von Trier has never been to the United States because he's afraid of flying, yet he seems determined to keep making movies about how horrible this country is.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The story is laughably incoherent, which would be less bothersome if the movie were not also so unremittingly pretentious.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Annoyingly simplistic.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Andy W. gave it a9:
Although I often look to the critics for their opinion of a film in this case they are seriously incorrect in their evaluation of Dear Wendy. This is a brilliant satire written by Lars Von Trier who examines how idealism can go wrong. Vinterberg again demonstrates his under-used directing ability and crafts a film that matches the quality of The Celebration. Make your own decision and see this movie.

Lisa A. gave it a9:
I have to strongly disagree with many of the film critics - I saw this film at the Toronto Film Fest and thought it was absolutely great! Please ignore the critics and see it.

Kim W. gave it a2:
As a Dane I'm ashamed of and embarrassed about Van Trier's latest films. His critic of a country he's never even visited is to me unfathomable. I believe there's a word for it - ignorance.

Pekka P. gave it a3:
Horrible. What's wrong with Trier these days. Sad, sad.

matthew l. gave it a9:
This movie is very interesting. The imaginative world that these guys create is just as real as the imaginary world that NRA types create for themselves, but much funner. The end invalidates any negative feelings toward the rest of the film.

Len gave it a9:
This film creates its own compelling world, where inital goofy comedy hurtles toward a tragedy that seems both futile and inevitable. Stylized and thought-provoking, obvious and oblique. See it and decide for yourself.

Dear Wendy Wellspring Media

Dear Wendy
Wellspring Media