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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Trouble the Water

EMAILPRINTZeitgeist Films

Trouble the Water reviews
83
7.6 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Documentary

Written by:

Directed by: Tia Lessin
Carl Deal

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 22, 2008
DVD: August 25, 2009

Running Time: 90 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary is at once horrifying and exhilarating. Directed and produced by Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Trouble the Water takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall—just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. The filmmakers document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood and the appalling repeated failures of government. Weaving an insider’s view of Katrina with a mix of verite and in-your-face filmmaking, Trouble the Water is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes—two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning. (Zeitgeist)

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...

100

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

If possible, Roberts' movie-within-a-movie is even more amazing than it sounds. She captures a tale of courage, heroism and tragedy more thrilling than any Hollywood spectacle.

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100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Essential, unique viewing.

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100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

A marvelous documentary that brings home the terror and heroism brought forth by the Katrina debacle.

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100

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Trouble the Water is so much better and truer and deeper and more illuminating than either of them ("Bowling for Columbine"/"Fahrenheit 9/11").

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100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The documentary shows outrageous behavior, none more so than when they and many others are directed to a nearby Navy base for refuge.

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100

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

It's a damning indictment of a national disgrace, but it also reveals the incredible faith and resilience of people who have nothing to rely on but themselves.

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100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Enraging and inspiring. It boasts the miraculous quality of finding a letter in a bottle and discovering that its authors are alive.

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90

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

A deeply moving story of resilience and redemption.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Lessin and Deal have made Trouble the Water a spellbinder you do not want to miss.

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88

Premiere Pauline Pechin

A remarkable and disturbing look at the personal stories glossed over by the headlines.

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88

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Slowly builds power to devastating effect.

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80

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

They have created an ingeniously fluid narrative structure that, when combined with Ms. Roberts’s visuals, news material and their own original 16-millimeter film footage, ebbs and flows like great drama.

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80

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A stirring documentary.

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80

New York Magazine David Edelstein

You can't make this stuff up. You can, however, capture it on film for all time. Trouble the Water is ineradicably moving.

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80

The New Yorker David Denby

One of the most eloquent records we have of a tragedy that brought out some of the most impressively alive men and women in New Orleans.

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80

Village Voice Jim Ridley

The resilience of the movie's subjects--survivors of street crime and drugs and HIV--irradiates Trouble the Water like sunshine.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The Roberts are unforgettable figures, and their insiders' perspective and ultimate survival and rebirth provide an exhilarating example of how wondrous things can emerge from the flood.

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75

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The film works as well as it does thanks to Kimberly Roberts' magnetic screen presence.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Spike Lee's voluminous "When the Levees Broke" proved a thorough indictment, a compilation of tragic and appalling facts encyclopedically catalogued. By contrast, Trouble the Water (on Oscar's short-list in the best doc category) has a more personal focus and, although just as damning, manages to strike a more hopeful chord.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Engrossing documentary.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Trouble The Water is infuriating in its depiction of helpless Americans getting left behind, and uplifting in the way it shows the Roberts putting their lives together, but it's also frustrating, because it lacks some focus.

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70

The Hollywood Reporter Justin Lowe

Kimberly's ground-zero home video of the storm is what really makes the film exceptional, although much of it is of such rough quality and execution that it struggles to hold up on the big screen.

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70

Washington Post Neely Tucker

Weaker in its second half than its mesmerizing first, as the story moves away from the intensity of the storm to follow the Robertses in their efforts to resettle.

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63

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The film is so immersed in Roberts's life that it becomes easy to think that most of what the camera sees is also from her perspective. It's actually too seamless.

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60

Variety Robert Koehler

Though tinged with the sheer gumption and personal resolve of amateur vidmaker and would-be rapper Kimberly Roberts, this is ultimately a minor doc contribution to the bulging library of Katrina-related films and TV reports.

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40

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal utilize the footage Kim and Scott Roberts had taken throughout the disaster, showing how residents suffered, survived and came together to help when official assistance let them down.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Roger H. gave it a10:
Brilliant, brilliant, compelling doc. True passion

Susan S. gave it a10:
Powerful stuff, and a hard reminder of the state of our union.

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