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100This is an elegant, powerfully emotional and courageous film, worth seeing entirely on its own artistic terms, and also for what it conveys about the complexity of African-American life and the resurgence of African-American cultural expression.
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91The power of Middle Of Nowhere is cumulative, conveyed in sustained tone and deepening character rather than bravura sequences or explosive confrontations.
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90Ms. DuVernay, from start to finish in this very fine movie, works to make sure that Ruby is a woman to remember.
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90So though it echoes the films of Charles Burnett, the plays of August Wilson and "A Raisin in the Sun," at its heart Middle of Nowhere is old-school, character-driven narrative at its most quietly effective.
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Oct 9, 201290A slow-motion-enhanced kiss scene, with Corinealdi in top I-don't-give-a-f--- strut, is a startling example of DuVernay's ability to conjure drama that at once takes place in a character's head and in a recognizable real world. It's beautifully nuanced and confidently ambiguous - and so is the movie.
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88DuVernay, a low-key director sparing in her use of emotion and music, has made an existential drama that is European in its feel.
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83This is a tough-minded story of change that happens in almost imperceptibly tiny increments - as true growth so often does in reality.
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80This is humanistic drama done right.
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78This beautifully acted and gradually revealed drama is a quiet discovery. Not one to blare its own horn, Middle of Nowhere is the kind of little indie film that gives little indie films a good name.
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75Sometimes, the quiet lyricism of DuVernay’s direction seems at odds with the grittiness of the subject matter, like poetry force-fed into prose.
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75Nothing is easily resolved in this complex drama, which makes it all the more honestly moving. More than anything, this is a film about a woman on a journey of self-discovery, finding her way gingerly.
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75Middle of Nowhere isn't a highly charged drama, as you might have gathered. Most of the action takes place within the mind of a lonely woman. That's why Corinealdi is so effective in the lead.
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Oct 10, 201275In a cinema landscape where the representation of the black female experience is most visibly explored through the modes of outlandish comedy, unironic melodrama, or not at all, Ava DuVernay's take is a decidedly refreshing one.
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70A deceptively slight film that strikes the right balance between realist family drama and earnestness.
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63Director Ava DuVernay, in showing Ruby's life in waiting, occasionally lets the pace slip into tedium.
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60In fact, "restraint" is the word that best characterizes DuVernay's film. This isn't a movie filled with overt action or outbursts of melodrama.
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60At heart, Middle of Nowhere offers material we've seen many times before. But between her perceptive direction and Corinealdi's layered performance, this modest, micro-budgeted story has been beautifully packaged.
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50What makes Middle of Nowhere a break-even proposition, rather than something to avoid, is that it deals with an aspect of life and with characters rarely seen in movies.
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50They're enough to elevate the film above its somewhat by-the-numbers plot and add a little juice to its slightly sluggish forward momentum.
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50Solidly acted but aloof and slow as molasses.