| 100 |
Premiere
Olivier Assayas latest effort could be mistaken for a hipper-than-thou thriller. But it isn’t--it’s in fact a difficult, challenging, and troubling art film. [October 2003, p. 19]
|
| 100 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
From the first voyeuristic peek into the ruthless world to the haunting, accusatory, unforgettable final image, it's a brilliant, stunning piece of work, perhaps not Assayas' best, but certainly his most fearless and impassioned.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
It's an exasperating, irresistible, must-see mess of a movie about life in the modern world and so very good that even when its story finally crashes and burns the filmmaking remains unscathed.
|
| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Has a dreamy ominousness about it, and a sorrowfulness that speaks to the artificial intimacies of cellular communication, digital images and dial-up porn.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
The entrancing visual imagery goes a long way toward filling in the screenplay's gaps in logic.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Disturbing, darkly beautiful.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
It's a consistently exciting piece of moviemaking, but it's not a pleasant experience; it's one of the few recent movies that have the power to leave you genuinely shaken up.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
It's gripping and provocative, making effective use of Charles Berling and the music of Sonic Youth, though I wish it were a little less indebted to David Cronenberg's "Videodrome."
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
This film will either drive you mad or make you angry, possibly both, if you’re lucky, but it’s rarely boring.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Expect Demonlover to become a midnight-movie staple in the coming years. And expect shards of it to roil your dreams for weeks.
|
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
Assayas can't resist turning Demonlover into an overcalculatedly irrational rabbit-hole-to-the-dark-side thriller. The movie morphs into a ''dream,'' all right, but I confess that all I wanted to do was wake up from it and return to the slithery intrigue of corporate depravity.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Sharp, erotic performances are the mainstay of Olivier Assayas' unnerving Demonlover, a visually stylish movie that equates and fuses high-stakes corporate negotiations with the video-game mentality.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Unlike almost every other sexy modern thriller (especially most recent studio blockbusters), this one gives you a lot to think about.
|
| 70 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
May be Assayas' airiest work to date, an intriguing trifle that leaves its considerable pleasures to lounge around on the surface.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
Nielsen beautifully embodies the sadness and confused sense of unreality that attend our appetite for the Internet's cheaper thrills.
|
| 70 |
Village Voice
However glitzy, clever, and luridly philosophical, Demonlover is still mainly an old-fashioned thriller.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
Whatever else it may be, this movie is not like anything you've seen this year, and those weary of Hollywood norms owe it to themselves to seek it out.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
I've seen Demonlover twice and still find the plot a challenge. I'd try again if I thought it would help.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
The harder you try to follow the narrative the more frustrating the film becomes, but its sleekly menacing images work their way into your brain like slivers of dry ice.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
Manages to feel both obvious and oblique: You feel the need to watch it twice but wonder if you would actually be up for it. It moves like a breezy techno-thriller but tangles itself with duplicities and metaphors. You get it, and then you don't get it, and then you wonder if you even care.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
Well-scripted, well-acted and occasionally sexy, but just isn't all that interesting.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
By the end of the movie, I frankly didn't give a damn. There's an ironic twist, but the movie hadn't paid for it and didn't deserve it. And I was struck by the complete lack of morality in Demonlover.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Never quite jells into a coherent statement. Or a coherent film.
|
| 40 |
Wall Street Journal
A visionary film with dramatic myopia.
|
| 40 |
Film Threat
Bob Westal
Demonlover would have probably been plane insufferable without Gina Gershon. All the other actors are doing an outstanding job of playing essentially dead souls, and it's a saving grace that Assayas allowed her, at least, to have some fun.
|
| 40 |
Empire
There's a Cronenbergian coldness to Olivier Assayas' corporate thriller.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Meant to be a sleek, dark, disturbing David Cronenberg-style thriller, Olivier Assayas's film is just an annoying concoction.
|
| 30 |
Variety
Sure to turn off general viewers due to its emotional inaccessibility, multitude of narrative problems and preoccupation with a torture Web site.
|
