X
  • 2010
  • Grasshopper Film
  • 1 h 25 m
  • 2010
  • Grasshopper Film
  • 1 h 25 m

Summary Phyllis and Harold is an astoundingly frank journey through a disastrous 59-year marriage. Drawing on a lifetime of her family's home movies and interviews made over 12 years, filmmaker Cindy Kleine mixes reportage, cinema verite and animation to uncover family secrets and tell a story that could not be shown publicly as long as her fath...

  • 2010
  • Grasshopper Film
  • 1 h 25 m
  • 2010
  • Grasshopper Film
  • 1 h 25 m

Phyllis and Harold

Metascore Mixed or Average Based on 9 Critic Reviews
47
User Score Available after 4 ratings
tbd
My Score
Hover and click to give a rating Saved

Where to Watch

Summary Phyllis and Harold is an astoundingly frank journey through a disastrous 59-year marriage. Drawing on a lifetime of her family's home movies and interviews made over 12 years, filmmaker Cindy Kleine mixes reportage, cinema verite and animation to uncover family secrets and tell a story that could not be shown publicly as long as her fath...

Where to Watch

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Mixed or Average Based on 9 Critic Reviews
47
22% Positive
2 Reviews
67% Mixed
6 Reviews
11% Negative
1 Review

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Mixed or Average Based on 9 Critic Reviews
47
22% Positive
2 Reviews
67% Mixed
6 Reviews
11% Negative
1 Review

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
80
Twelve years in the making, Phyllis and Harold has extraordinary breadth and depth and has been made with wit, compassion and imagination, and it reflects the complexity of life itself.
By Kevin Thomas FULL REVIEW
75
Phyllis and Harold is really about Phyllis and how discontent has a way of spilling, then spreading. Kleine never quite says so, but her mother’s life was a tragedy.
By Wesley Morris FULL REVIEW
60
Evocatively fleshed out with surprisingly iconic homemovies, passionate love letters and well-chosen pop tunes, Kleine's homegrown Jewish "Madame Bovary" escapes the navel-gazing boundaries of the personal-diary docu by the sheer force of its evocation of bygone sensuality.
By Ronnie Scheib FULL REVIEW
50
Fortunately, Lisa Crafts' colorful animation intermittently brings welcome charm and life to this otherwise dreary tale.
FULL REVIEW
50
What's interesting about the filmmaker's rummage through her parents' conjugal closet--another in a thriving sub-genre of domestic-turmoil docs as told by their spawn--is the abyss between the husband and wife's points of view.
FULL REVIEW
40
The problem with these my-family-was-messed-up-and-I need-to-share projects is that they require an audience of complete strangers to give a damn. And while we sometimes do, it’s usually because the material is inherently compelling (“Tarnation”) or the filmmaking uncovers truths beyond the template of family therapy (“51 Birch Street”). Sadly, Phyllis and Harold fulfills neither requirement.
By Jeannette Catsoulis FULL REVIEW
25
My only question: Why does Kleine -- who's married to Andre Gregory of "My Dinner With Andre" fame -- think that anybody outside her family gives a damn?
By V.A. Musetto FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.

Details

 View All
Production Company Rainbow Releasing, Silver Penny Pictures
Release Date Feb 19, 2010
Duration 1 h 25 m
Genres
Tagline If you had to do it again...would you?
View All Details

Related Movies

Hoop Dreams

98
Universal Acclaim

Man with a Movie Camera

96
Universal Acclaim

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

96
Universal Acclaim

I Am Not Your Negro

95
Universal Acclaim

Woodstock

95
Universal Acclaim

Collective

95
Universal Acclaim

Amazing Grace

94
Universal Acclaim

Stop Making Sense

94
Universal Acclaim

We Were Here

94
Universal Acclaim

Faces Places

94
Universal Acclaim

David Byrne’s American Utopia

93
Universal Acclaim

Shoah: Four Sisters

93
Universal Acclaim

Our Body

93
Universal Acclaim

Sherpa

93
Universal Acclaim

The Decline of Western Civilization

93
Universal Acclaim

Brother's Keeper

93
Universal Acclaim

Crumb

93
Universal Acclaim

One More Time with Feeling

92
Universal Acclaim

Sugarcane

92
Universal Acclaim

The Act of Killing

92
Universal Acclaim

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

92
Universal Acclaim

Menus Plaisirs - Les Troisgros

92
Universal Acclaim

Related News

The 15 Worst Movies Based on TV Shows

The 15 Worst Movies Based on TV Shows

Jason Dietz

Hollywood continually attempts to bring TV shows to the big screen--and it often turns out poorly. We look at the 15 absolute worst TV-to-film adaptations so far.

  • movie
DVD/Blu-ray Releases: New & Upcoming

DVD/Blu-ray Releases: New & Upcoming

Jason Dietz

Find a list of new movie and TV releases on DVD and Blu-ray (updated weekly) as well as a calendar of upcoming releases on home video.

  • movie
2024 Movie Release Calendar

2024 Movie Release Calendar

Jason Dietz

Find a schedule of release dates for every movie coming to theaters, VOD, and streaming throughout 2024 and beyond, updated weekly.

  • movie
May 2024 Movie Preview

May 2024 Movie Preview

Keith Kimbell

Get a look at the most notable movies debuting in May, including a Mad Max prequel, a Planet of the Apes sequel, and a promising Ryan Gosling-led action-comedy.

  • movie
Every Zack Snyder Movie, Ranked

Every Zack Snyder Movie, Ranked

Nick Hyman

With the arrival of Zack Snyder's latest Rebel Moon chapter on Netflix, we rank every one of the director's films—from bad to, well, less bad—by Metascore.

  • movie