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91Afterschool wears its many influences on its sleeve, but it’s very much a movie of the moment. The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos’ film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late ’00s.
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90It's both a supremely controlled exercise in form and tone and an intriguing exploration of the ways new technology intersects with age-old questions of dominance, control and individuality, particularly in the school setting.
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88Campos, a cinematic disciple of Stanley Kubrick and latter-period Gus Van Sant, opts to let the movie do the talking for him. The fact that this is a film of few words only adds to its hypnotic, relentless pull.
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83Campos (who was 24 when he made this jolting pic) captures the numbing psychic scramble that just might cause the YouTube generation to go morally haywire. Or become filmmakers.
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This is a sophisticated stylistic exercise too rarefied for wide audiences, but earmarked for critical kudos.
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70Afterschool, the almost frighteningly accomplished first feature made by Antonio Campos when he was 24, is high school as horror show.
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63Though thin on story, the film shows poise and vision, using bleak cinema-realité techniques with chilling effect. Campos promises to be heard from again.
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60Compelling performances and some stand-out scenes but this lacks the cohesive language of "Elephant," for example.
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40In truth there isn’t much story here, or much insight either; the kind of alienated teenagers wandering through this film exist in movies far out of proportion to their number in real life.
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40Unsettles without illuminating, marred by narcotic pacing and a blank lead performance.
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The public appetite for high-school high jinks may be limitless, but the pretentious camerawork and empty ideas of this feature-length mope yield little pleasure or insight.