Must Read After My Death
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Betsy Sharkey
    90
    At its heart, and there is a great heart to be discovered here, Morgan Dews' documentary Must Read After My Death is a searing and intimate account of an unconventional woman struggling not to lose her identity or her sanity in the rigid 1950s suburban world of stay-at-home moms, well-behaved children and sparkling-clean houses.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    What an anguished story it tells, of a marriage from hell.
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    Did granny intend this stuff for strangers? We'll never know. File this ''therapeutic'' movie, well made and creepy, on the dysfunction-as-art shelf next to "Capturing the Friedmans."
  4. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    83
    Dews perhaps makes too much of the notion that Allis was a woman out of her time – a feminist precursor. This is too sociological a formulation for such a patently psychological crisis.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Stephen Farber
    80
    The secrets revealed here are not quite as shocking as the hints of child molestation captured in "Friedmans." Still, this is an equally intriguing and unsettling look at the turmoil hidden behind the white picket fences of suburbia.
  6. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    80
    Intensely compelling documentary.
  7. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Rick Kisonak
    80
    Watching the American nightmare of Must Read After My Death play out, it's impossible not to be both horrified and powerfully moved. Impossible as well not to feel profound admiration for the artfulness with which Dews has pieced these archival cries for help into a singular creation anyone who appreciates first rate filmmaking absolutely must see.
  8. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    75
    As with "Capturing the Friedmans," the documentary is grueling to sit through. Yet the greasy, guilty thrill of being privy to your neighbors' most intimate dramas makes it impossible to stop watching.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    75
    The relentless negativity in Must Read After My Death can become overwhelming at times, but it's undeniably mesmerizing.
  10. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    70
    Horror and social value contend for equal honors in Must Read After My Death, a frightening -- and eerily edifying -- documentary that Morgan Dews created from a family trove of photos, Dictaphone letters, audiotapes, voluminous transcripts and home movies.
  11. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    60
    Dews helps Allis hold out a gendered posthumous snapshot of an era whose smug surface, barely masking oceans of suffering, makes "Revolutionary Road" look like a tea party.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    An alternately fascinating and disquietingly intimate portrait of a 1960s American family falling apart.

User Reviews

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User Score
9.3 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 4 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. SueS
    9
    C'mon can't anyone just rate this without trying to be melodramatic or trying to be the next author? Let's just call it. They were both stuck in this marriage that I don't think either of them wanted. She wanted great kids, I'm not sure what he wanted, but it was clear what they both wanted when he traveled for business. I would call it an understanding. The hell that was for her and for many women in the 60's was the expectation of the women "Kept" at home. I know women from that time and it was very accurately portrayed in this film.… Full Review »
  2. JoeR
    9
    Intense film.
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