Advanced Search Beta »
Basic Search Fields
Demonlover
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 28 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 28
  3. Negative: 2 out of 28
view
per page
  1. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    100
    Olivier Assayas latest effort could be mistaken for a hipper-than-thou thriller. But it isn’t--it’s in fact a difficult, challenging, and troubling art film. [October 2003, p. 19]
    All this critic's reviews
  2. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    100
    From the first voyeuristic peek into the ruthless world to the haunting, accusatory, unforgettable final image, it's a brilliant, stunning piece of work, perhaps not Assayas' best, but certainly his most fearless and impassioned.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    90
    It's an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed.
  4. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    Has a dreamy ominousness about it, and a sorrowfulness that speaks to the artificial intimacies of cellular communication, digital images and dial-up porn.
  5. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    80
    It's a consistently exciting piece of moviemaking, but it's not a pleasant experience; it's one of the few recent movies that have the power to leave you genuinely shaken up.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    The entrancing visual imagery goes a long way toward filling in the screenplay's gaps in logic.
  7. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    80
    Disturbing, darkly beautiful.
  8. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    It's gripping and provocative, making effective use of Charles Berling and the music of Sonic Youth, though I wish it were a little less indebted to David Cronenberg's "Videodrome."
  9. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    78
    This film will either drive you mad or make you angry, possibly both, if you’re lucky, but it’s rarely boring.
  10. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    75
    Unlike almost every other sexy modern thriller (especially most recent studio blockbusters), this one gives you a lot to think about.
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    75
    Sharp, erotic performances are the mainstay of Olivier Assayas' unnerving Demonlover, a visually stylish movie that equates and fuses high-stakes corporate negotiations with the video-game mentality.
  12. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    75
    Expect Demonlover to become a midnight-movie staple in the coming years. And expect shards of it to roil your dreams for weeks.
  13. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    75
    Assayas can't resist turning Demonlover into an overcalculatedly irrational rabbit-hole-to-the-dark-side thriller. The movie morphs into a ''dream,'' all right, but I confess that all I wanted to do was wake up from it and return to the slithery intrigue of corporate depravity.
  14. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    70
    Nielsen beautifully embodies the sadness and confused sense of unreality that attend our appetite for the Internet's cheaper thrills.
  15. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    May be Assayas' airiest work to date, an intriguing trifle that leaves its considerable pleasures to lounge around on the surface.
  16. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    70
    However glitzy, clever, and luridly philosophical, Demonlover is still mainly an old-fashioned thriller.
  17. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Luke Y. Thompson
    70
    Whatever else it may be, this movie is not like anything you've seen this year, and those weary of Hollywood norms owe it to themselves to seek it out.
  18. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    63
    I've seen Demonlover twice and still find the plot a challenge. I'd try again if I thought it would help.
  19. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    60
    The harder you try to follow the narrative the more frustrating the film becomes, but its sleekly menacing images work their way into your brain like slivers of dry ice.
  20. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    58
    Manages to feel both obvious and oblique: You feel the need to watch it twice but wonder if you would actually be up for it. It moves like a breezy techno-thriller but tangles itself with duplicities and metaphors. You get it, and then you don't get it, and then you wonder if you even care.
  21. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    50
    By the end of the movie, I frankly didn't give a damn. There's an ironic twist, but the movie hadn't paid for it and didn't deserve it. And I was struck by the complete lack of morality in Demonlover.
  22. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Never quite jells into a coherent statement. Or a coherent film.
  23. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Hartlaub
    50
    Well-scripted, well-acted and occasionally sexy, but just isn't all that interesting.
  24. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Bob Westal
    40
    Demonlover would have probably been plane insufferable without Gina Gershon. All the other actors are doing an outstanding job of playing essentially dead souls, and it's a saving grace that Assayas allowed her, at least, to have some fun.
  25. Empire
    Reviewed by: Alan Morrison
    40
    There's a Cronenbergian coldness to Olivier Assayas' corporate thriller.
  26. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    40
    A visionary film with dramatic myopia.
    All this critic's reviews
  27. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    30
    Sure to turn off general viewers due to its emotional inaccessibility, multitude of narrative problems and preoccupation with a torture Web site.
  28. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    30
    Meant to be a sleek, dark, disturbing David Cronenberg-style thriller, Olivier Assayas's film is just an annoying concoction.
prev next
Page:
  • 1