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76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
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53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
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43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
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29
Collector, The
23
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80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
xx
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30
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34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
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39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo![]()
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek![]()
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D![]()
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up![]()
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
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66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
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55
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76
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86
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13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
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70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
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75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
67
Departures
xx
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71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
52
Grace
66
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The![]()
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The![]()
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking![]()
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Dear Wendy

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Lars von Trier
Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 23, 2005
DVD: March 21, 2006
Running Time: 101 minutes, Color
Origin: Denmark / France / Germany / UK
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: It's All About Love
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...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Surreal, vaguely amusing, European-made drama.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Jeremy Mathews
The film is challenging and consistently interesting, but also trite and overbearing to the extent that it damages its message.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
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.
