Critic Reviews
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
With shocking humor and surprising grace, Von Trier creates something unique and memorable.
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| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
A highly calculated act of mischief that sounds like a stunt cooked up for Howard Stern's radio show.
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| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Fascinating, obnoxious and poignant.
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| 72 |
Mr. Showbiz
Richard T. Jameson
Shot on location, handheld camera, available light, no props, no music, no filters, etc. We may wonder, "What are we doing here?" But we won't look away.
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| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
Von Trier has assembled a fearless troupe of gifted actors - especially Jorgensen - to explore the outer reaches of human cruelty and vulnerability.
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| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
Demonstrates that sadomasochistic streak in von Trier that equates the raw with the experimental.
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| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
It's interesting - in its own let-it-all-hang-out, shaky-camera way.
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| 60 |
TV Guide
It's overtly about provocation, set in a tony Danish suburb where a group of men and women living commune-style in an empty house are discovering their "inner idiots" by pretending to be developmentally challenged.
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| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
The group's intent is not to insult those physically or mentally challenged in any manner of degree but, rather, to disturb middle-class types as much as they possibly can.
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| 50 |
LA Weekly
Becomes guilty of the very prejudice that his film has so obviously tried to subvert. It's too bad -- the rest of it is hilarious.
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| 50 |
Boston Globe
Von Trier's The Idiots is both lively and juvenile.
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| 42 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Von Trier is far more hypocritical than his straw-figure characters, and he's simply too cynical and insincere to be provocative.
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| 25 |
Christian Science Monitor
Tries to be daring and iconoclastic but winds up seeming as spoiled and childish as its main characters.
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| 20 |
Chicago Reader
This is thoughtful nihilist provocation at best.
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| 10 |
The New York Times
Has nothing on its mind besides the squirming discomfort of its audience, the achievement of which it holds up as a brave political accomplishment.
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