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The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector
  • Release Date: Jun 30, 2010
Metascore
70 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
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  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kevin Lally
    90
    What makes "Ecstasy" essential viewing for any pop-music fan and any student of celebrity pathology is the interview itself. Spector, despite his immodest comparisons of himself to Bach, da Vinci and Galileo, is surprisingly entertaining company, not simply the mad recluse with crazy hair that was his shocking image during the trials.
  2. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    83
    Currently serving out a sentence that will likely consume the remainder of his life, Spector turns the interview into a trial on his own terms--one that's gripping, revelatory, and a little self-incriminating.
  3. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    To have been in junior high school when rhapsodic fugues of yearning like "Spanish Harlem," "Uptown," or "Be My Baby" first poured from the radio is to have a sensibility, if not a fantasy life, in some way molded by this monster of self-absorption; to see The Agony and the Ecstasy is to be discomfitingly haunted by the specter of that long-ago innocence.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    Creepily riveting.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    80
    Veering wildly between paranoia (being judged by "12 people who voted for George Bush") and self-aggrandizement (modestly comparing himself to Da Vinci, Bach and Galileo), Spector makes a fascinating subject.
  6. NPR
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    75
    Makes fascinating viewing despite its clumsy bombast.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    The film casts Spector in a sympathetic light. You can't help feeling sorry for the tormented genius.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    70
    With his wide, hollow eyes, nervous fingers and celebrated big hair, Spector is a haunted-looking figure whose words are always compelling no matter what unexpected dissatisfactions they may reveal.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    Jan 27, 2011
    63
    A fascinating shambles of a documentary - fascinating because its subject is so influential and so deranged, a shambles because its filmmaker can't decide which approach to take and so takes all of them.
  10. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    60
    This absorbing film isn't an apology or an explanation, but it nonetheless holds plenty of answers - including an amusing dissection of that infamously wiry hair-bear 'fro from the man who wore it.
  11. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    60
    A little more in-depth insight into a person who both produced that song ("Be My Baby") and pulled a trigger might have been nice.
  12. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Amy Biancolli
    50
    An imperfect, fascinating film about an imperfect, fascinating man.
  13. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: John P. McCarthy
    40
    Most of its truth (and any irony) is undercut by director Vikram Jayanti's fawning approach.
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