Northfork
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 31
  3. Negative: 5 out of 31
view
per page
  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    There has never been a movie quite like Northfork… The movie is visionary and elegiac, more a fable than a story, and frame by frame, it looks like a portfolio of spaces so wide, so open, that men must wonder if they have a role beneath such indifferent skies.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    The movie elegantly mingles drama, comedy, and low-key spiritual resonance. It also has a splendid cast.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    88
    Strictly a love it-or-hate-it proposition, it requires viewers to work at a movie with a narrative that could support at least half a dozen interpretations.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    75
    This is very much the bargain that Northfork offers an audience: Buy into the brothers' elegiac meditation on angels, Eden, and the death of American innocence or sit back and scoff at it as so much David Lynch lite.
  5. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    50
    The cinematic equivalent of an elaborate and poetically constructed non sequitur.
  6. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Moody and atmospheric -- a study in tone over plot and pacing over characterization. Unfortunately, in devoting all of their efforts towards the film's look and feel, co-creators Mark and Michael Polish have crafted a motion picture that is static, occasionally opaque, and, worst of all, boring.
  7. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    38
    An insufferably artsy, pretentious work, the sort of picture that gives art films a bad name.
  8. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    38
    American art movies rarely come fancier or emptier than Northfork, a down-home arabesque made of angel fluff.
  9. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    25
    Numbing and inert.
  10. Empire
    Reviewed by: Nick Dawson
    60
    Every tiny aspect of the universe here comes from the filmmakers' imagination, and while this occasionally leaves us bemused, the film as a whole is a magical, otherworldly trip into undiscovered areas of cinema.
  11. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    16
    It has that vintage Polish pace, their signature arch pomposity and rhythmless weirdness, only this time the brothers had to go and make a cosmic allegory of American dreams.
  12. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    100
    A thoroughly original accomplishment of a high artistic order, Northfork features flawless, spare production design by Ichelle Spitzig and the Polish brothers' father, Del, and cinematographer M. David Mullen's striking images slide effortlessly into Dalí-like Surrealism.
  13. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    90
    With their third film, the Polish brothers find their authorial voice, resulting in a lyrical work whose free-floating Lynchian weirdness coalesces into an unexpectedly touching movie.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    90
    There is nothing quite like this movie, and I'm not altogether sure there is much more to it than its lovely peculiarity. But at a moment when so many films strive to be obvious and interchangeable as possible, it is gratifying to find one that is puzzling, subtle and handmade.
  15. Variety
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    90
    Love it or hate it, Northfork is a cinematic vision (visually and textually) unlike any with which most moviegoers, even arthouse regulars, will be familiar.
  16. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    80
    Isn't everyone's cup of tea -- as the Polishes admit in a clever bit of critical preemption -- but it possesses an undeniable, haunting grandeur.
  17. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    80
    Stark, mysterious, and often weirdly funny.
  18. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    60
    Just about gets us off the ground on its dreamy, feathery angel wings; it just doesn't have the strength or the stamina to keep us aloft.
  19. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    50
    So stuck is the movie inside the heads and hearts of its indisputably gifted makers, it never quite makes the leap into ours.
  20. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    30
    It's just too lost in its own presumed self-enchantment.
  21. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    75
    It's a film that is mystifying and haunting -- a cool, brotherly vision of the last day and the coming flood, of American dreams and the vanishing frontier.
  22. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    75
    Just when the movie seems set to soar, there's a drag factor -- it keeps getting weighed down, if not sunk, by an anchor of ponderousness.
  23. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    I predict Northfork will give you food for reflection or a case of the hives. I stopped scratching 20 minutes into the movie, settled into its lulling rhythm and floated away into the Polish brothers' flaky, austere dreamworld.
  24. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    63
    Northfork feels like the work of a couple of ardent art students who, for whatever reson, are very keen on pleasing their teacher. [July/August 2003, p. 23]
    All this critic's reviews
  25. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    50
    An improvement over "Jackpot," but not much. The best thing about it is Nolte, playing the grizzled priest as an angel in his own right. Everyone else- - save the young boy playing the orphan -- seems to be in on a joke we just don't get.
  26. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    40
    The film is meticulously crafted but frustratingly meaningless.
  27. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    Gets under your skin with its graceful edits and poetic elisions, lovely performances, and faded imagery.
  28. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    83
    A love letter to the state of Montana and a landscape that is biblical in its desolation and splendor.
  29. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    67
    There's real craft here and a vision that's nothing if not unique.
  30. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    80
    Northfork may be doomed, but the Polish brothers and cinematographer M. David Mullen (who worked with the brothers on their previous features, "Twin Falls, Idaho" and "Jackpot") make the place feel like heaven on earth.
  31. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Laura Sinagra
    60
    Northfork's overall ponderousness prevents it from becoming a transcendent fictive poem on the violent domestication of the West.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
5.1 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 21 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 19
  3. Negative: 9 out of 19
  1. StevenF
    7
    Northfork is equally dazzling as it is strange, intriguing as it is bizarre and beautiful as it is sombre, but ultimately doesn't come up truly masterful due to an out of sorts and often misfiring plot line that is never clear as to its intentions.
    Six men are tasked with removing the last members of a small town in Montana out of their settlement due to a dam being built, which will ultimately see the current town underwater.
    The story is told in various situations as the remaining residents are, for various reasons, reluctant to leave. In the midst of it all is a small boy, who is unwell and too sick to leave town, being looked after by the local priest (Nick Nolte) who has quite interesting prospects indeed.
    As the six men attempt to peacefully remove the remaining residents, the absurdity of it all really comes to light, one man wants real angel wings in return for his peaceful transition, and another nails his own feet to his home porch and shoots at the men trying to talk to him, these men have the promise of 1.5 acres of land in return for 65 successful home evacuations.
    Northfork truly does bring a unique and colourful story to your screen, its characters are both larger than life and mysterious in more ways than can possibly be imagined, the young boy Irwin has the most vivid and strangest of dreams, while the priest who looks after him is both protective and curious as to the boy and his meaning.
    The ideas and philosophical meaning and actions of the characters are at times quite wonderful to watch, clever and unique cinematography combined with a unique style of story have created some memorable and beautiful scenes. But this doesn't mean that the film is without its flaws. While nothing concrete or no clear narrative is properly established, the viewer seems to have to simply tag along blind and be given a heads up along the way that this is happening and that is happening. Many scenes are well written and often humorous, but the weak narrative hold them back from being great.
    With great performances from the likes of Daryl Hannah, James Woods and Robin Sachs, Northfork is quite a unique form of film, but aims too large and doesn't give enough away to be fully appreciated, it wonderful, but not masterful.    … Full Review »
  2. JohnY.
    8
    Not a masterpiece, but a visually stunning work that has a pace and mood that's all its own. At times, it's quite mesmerizing.
See all user reviews »