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Twentynine Palms

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Bruno Dumont
Directed by: Bruno Dumont
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 9, 2004
DVD: September 21, 2004
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Germany / USA
Language(s): English / French (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Yekaterina Golubeva, and David Wissak
Twentynine Palms is a small, remote American town deep in the desert of central California. It provides the unique setting for this darkly comedic chronicle of the romantic and sexual life of a young couple in love. (Wellspring Media)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Flanders L'Humanité
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
At turns sexy, ultra-violent and sweet, it will infiltrate your brain long after you've seen it.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Dumont's methods are radical, but there's a fascinating method to his seeming cinematic madness.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Even adventurous moviegoers who are familiar with Bruno Dumont's previous features...may be taken aback by the intensity of this shocker.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
For most of the way, the film is perceptive about the hot-and-cold volatility of wounded relationships, when couples are struggling to communicate yet familiar enough to exploit each other's weaknesses.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Slams us with an absurdly repugnant ending, for absolutely no reason other than to shock viewers and generate cheap controversy.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The sustained force of Mr. Dumont's vision of existence as a swirl of brute instincts may not be easy to absorb, but it marks him as a major filmmaker.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
This is one of those films in which the Act of Driving becomes a 10-minute statement of high emptiness; Dumont even manages to make sex in the desert boring.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The latest minimalist provocation from the infuriating but talented French director Bruno Dumont. [12 April 2004, p. 89]
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
It's alternately monotonous, hot and dramatic, which makes for a peculiar, not entirely unsatisfying atmosphere of neo -- or is that post? -- noir. What it all means, of course, I have no idea.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A textbook example of how a director can strip away plot, motivation, character, and meaning and still leave arrant pretension standing tall.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Embedded between all the sex and sunlight are some woefully underdeveloped ideas about American militarism and masculinity. Dumont doesn't bother to develop these ideas, principally because he seems to think it's enough to arrange his characters like puppets and tear off their heads.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Alas, the plot eventually takes over, and it's exceptionally ugly and unpleasant.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
The "Humanite" director's Death Valley void is the real "Lost in Translation."
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Anton C. gave it a9:
The only simile that suits all the attributes to this film is "as hell".
Chad S. gave it a7:
The central question surrounding "29 Palms" for me is if the final violent act would've occured independently of the nod to "Deliverance". After all, why else would you be driving around the California desert? [***SPOILERS***] Maybe, just maybe, David was double-crossed by those men in the white truck. If you believe he was, the scene in which David boots Katerina out of the motel room, post-b.j., gains a noir-ish edge. Maybe her paranoia about that passing car is an unconscious premonition. Unlike Catherine Breillart's "Fat Girl", filmmaker Bruno Dumont might be planting clues under our noses.
pa pa gave it a9:
Human just being animal being human unusual violent.
Dave Van H. gave it an8:
Not as good as Dumont's Humanite, but a fascinating film nonetheless. most people will be put off by it's deliberately slow pace, but those who go along will not be disappointed.
