One Bright Shining Moment
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 1 out of 10
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    Lively documentary about McGovern's disastrous run for the US presidency. The interviews with him are worth the price of admission.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    It's a deeply flawed film but also an important one.
  3. The New Republic
    Reviewed by: Stanley Kauffmann
    80
    A lively, long, intelligent documentary.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    Running just a little over two hours and wordily narrated by talk-radio host Amy Goodman, Stephen Vittoria's hagiography spends more time bemoaning the past 30 years of U.S. political history and setting the dismal tone for McGovern's arrival on the political scene than it does on his 1972 campaign.
  5. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Steven Mikulan
    70
    The strength of One Bright Shining Moment lies in its reminder of McGovern's critical role in reforming the way his party chose its convention delegates, and how prescient he had always been about the looming disaster of Vietnam.
  6. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    70
    "Too decent to be president" was the label stuck to former senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, the self-effacing subject of Stephen Vittoria's One Bright Shining Moment. If "decent" means "polite," then the movie makes no effort to emulate its subject.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    Instructive but aggressively biased liberal history lesson.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    60
    The film's greatest asset and strongest selling point is the former senator from South Dakota himself, thoughtful and articulate at age 83, who talks candidly, even eloquently, about his political career.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Janet Maslin
    50
    Still, as the documentary plods past the two-hour mark, much of Mr. McGovern's legend seems dependent on Nixon's faults, and even the Democrat's political supporters, with hindsight's many gifts, can't infuse his persona with any more dynamism.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    30
    Amy Goodman's narration, though correct, has a petulant, Spanish Inquisition ring to it, only made more childish by the film's cheap idealization of the senator from South Dakota as some kind of pacifist Savonarola, overdue for canonization.

User Reviews

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User Score
8.4 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. StackL.
    10
    This is a very important historical/political film. It's an alternative look at the past 50 years. The interviews (especially McGovern & Gloria Steinem) are great. Music is cool, too.… Full Review »
  2. TerryA.
    2
    Interesting in the same manner as watching a train wreck.
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