Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The only thing that tops Cave here is Cohen himself at the end, singing "Tower of Song" with U2.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

An affectionate and intimate celebration of the acclaimed troubadour in stirring music and words.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A moving tribute to this legendary artist's life and career.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Australian rocker Nick Cave talks of how discovering Cohen during his small-town youth "just changed things." Bono calls the singer "our Shelley, our Byron."

TV Guide Ken Fox

The accolades are typically gushing - Bono likens Cohen to Byron and Shelley.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

I'm not generally a big fan of tribute concerts, but this is a glorious exception.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

If there's a calmer, more self-collected star out there, then he or she has hidden the fact pretty well.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a fleeting but memorable image in a film that defines Leonard Cohen largely through the admiration of fellow artists, who performed his songs at a tribute concert last year at the opera house in Sydney, Australia. Their admiration borders on the reverential, but reverence doesn't get in the way of their performances, which are varied, impassioned and thrilling.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Combines pieces of an extended interview with this Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and author, now 71, with a tribute concert organized by Hal Willner at the Sydney Opera House in January 2005.

Time Richard Corliss

Fetching little monument to the bard of rapturous bereavement.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

If you can't think of a crisis in your life that's tied to a Leonard Cohen song, then Canadian director Lian Lunson's velvety, exuberantly hagiographic film of a 2005 Sydney tribute concert to the Prince of Pain may not be the movie for you.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Director Lian Lunson keeps the tone reverent, making I'm Your Man the cinematic equivalent of a testimonial dinner. But there's a place for that kind of film, particularly for subjects who've earned it.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

I'm Your Man has at its spiritual center a troubadour with a distinctive, cagey mellowness about him.

USA Today Claudia Puig

I'm Your Man movingly captures the artist's lifelong search for truth and beauty and his translation of it into song.

San Francisco Chronicle Joel Selvin

In some cases, the songs themselves shine most brightly.

Film Threat Mark Bell

The performances in the film are soul-saving.

Variety Robert Koehler

Proves that few can maneuver one of Cohen's dusky, lovelorn songs like Cohen himself.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

The film comes to life when Cohen is on screen.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In this muddled but marvelous blend of documentary and concert film, director Lian Lunson takes you down to a place where it's possible to look closely at the life and art of cult troubadour Leonard Cohen.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The documentary seeks only to make a joyful noise, and is sometimes laboured in the love it so keenly wants to express. Then again, as Leonard would be the first to concede, there are worse sins than flawed worship.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is Lunson's debut picture and she's smart enough to keep the whole affair very simple.

Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour

Succeeds best when it intensifies its focus on the work and life of its main subject, seen in interviews, home movies and in a climactic performance with Bono and the Edge on "Tower of Song."

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Offering both too little material and too much, the movie leaves us in the bizarre position of understanding its subject no better by the end than we did at the beginning.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The net effect is one of frustration and will surely send Cohen compleatists back to their record collections for relief.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

If you're going to make a documentary about Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, you should have him perform some of his better-known melodies, like "Suzanne."

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

This "Last Waltz"–like doc is almost funereal, full of reverent banalities spliced between overly folksy takes on melancholic Leonard Cohen bombshells.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Torturously dull.