As I Lay Dying
As I Lay Dying Image
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Metascore
50

Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: Based on the 1930 classic by William Faulkner, the story chronicles the Bundren family as they traverse the Mississippi countryside to bring the body of their deceased mother Addie to her hometown for burial. Addie’s husband Anse and their children, Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and the yououngest one Vardaman, leave the farm on a carriage with her coffin - each affected by Addie’s death in a profound and different way. Their road trip to Jefferson, some forty miles away, is disrupted by every antagonistic force of nature or man: flooded rivers, injury and accident, a raging barn fire, and not least of all -- each individual character’s personal turmoil and inner commotion which at times threaten the fabric of the family more than any outside force.… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 13
  3. Negative: 1 out of 13
  1. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Boyd Van Hoeij
    May 25, 2013
    83
    The film seems to have been made to suggest something of Faulkner's style in a cinematic medium, and it's certainly laudable that there have been very few concessions to the marketability of a project like this.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    May 25, 2013
    70
    Franco, employing diverse cinematic techniques from split screen (mostly early on) to direct-to-camera address, makes the Bundrens’ time of trial more immediately coherent than it is on the page without disrespecting Faulkner’s oblique style.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    Oct 10, 2013
    70
    In rushing in where wise men might fear to tread, Mr. Franco has accomplished something serious and worthwhile. His As I Lay Dying is certainly ambitious, but it is also admirably modest.
  4. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Kevin Jagernauth
    May 25, 2013
    50
    As I Lay Dying is another Franco lark that is more of an experiment with form than a fully realized movie. One almost gets the sense that Franco is working out ideas with As I Lay Dying, with the goal of creating a cohesive film as a secondary ambition to simply capturing the feel of Faulkner's prose.
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by:  Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
    Oct 9, 2013
    50
    Like Franco’s other directorial efforts, it ends up coming across as an academic art object, somewhere halfway between a graduate thesis and a video installation—interesting, but only in context.
  6. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Oct 10, 2013
    40
    Alas, the split-screen compositions, slow-motion effects, pensive closeups and prosthetic teeth can’t distract from what’s missing: Faulkner’s pointed but deeply buried observations of the human condition.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    Oct 11, 2013
    38
    As Franco dilutes the drama with first-year-film-student gimmicks, like split screens and slow motion, it just seems like a dull collection of pointless monologues from actors who can’t even be bothered to match up their accents. Franco is a dilettante, and it shows.

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