Tell Them Who You Are

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A remarkable work -- lively, painful, humorous, deeply revealing of both father and son -- that is worthy of one of Hollywood's finest directors of photography.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A superb portrait of a father and son disguised as a docu about Haskell Wexler.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Near the beginning of the movie, the younger Wexler admits that the film is his attempt to get closer to his father. This sense of personal mission helps make Tell Them Who You Are the richest documentary of its kind since Terry Zwigoff's "Crumb."

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What Mark does, better perhaps than either he or his father realizes, is to capture some aspects of a lifelong rivalry that involves love but not much contentment.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Funny, touching, vital.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

As fascinating as all the film history is, the movie's core is the dynamic between a famous but distant parent and his child.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Possibly without meaning to, the younger Wexler has made a superb examination not of professional cinematography -- really, who cares? -- but of the eternal bad business between fathers and sons.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

What makes this movie deeply fascinating is the fight Haskell wages. As the semi-willing subject of this movie, he's determined to gain the upper hand or, at least, come out somewhat sympathetic.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The elder Wexler keeps insisting that he won't sign a release for the film unless he approves of the finished product, so he must have been pleased with its brutally honest assessment of him as a gifted filmmaker who never realized his true potential.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A strange, strident and finally fulfilling father-son saga.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Chicago-bred Haskell is such an intense, contentious, prickly figure, he would tend to take over any film portrait, and he definitely dominates here.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A fascinating glimpse of family love and rivalry, if not a deep-digging documentary of "My Architect" quality.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Breezy and informative. It offers a view of the talented, opinionated man that only his son could pull off.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Beneath its exploration of fatherly distance, this is really a portrait of why cranks make better artists than earnest nice guys.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

In more ways than one, Mark Wexler gets the release he's seeking.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Engaging and perceptive.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A compelling look at the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler by his photojournalist son Mark.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Busting with clips from films Haskell Wexler shot and directed, the doc is a rare thing: an ingenuous portrait of a thoroughly Four-Square Artist, Assembled With Love And Rockets Inside A Family's Spite-Tainted Gates.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

In the new, personal documentaries in which you pick up a camera to help get a grip on your own life, there is a queasy line between inspiration and therapy. Mark Wexler crosses back and forth over that line.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The last word on Haskell Wexler's career hasn't been spoken, but it's hard to imagine there's much more to say about him as a bad dad.

Slate David Edelstein

Fascinating for the issues--ethical, aesthetic, psychoanalytic--it raises. But it doesn't fully come together.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

He has had a notable career, and I wish there had been more specifics about it in the film.

Empire David Parkinson

A desperately sad look at two men whose determination to rebel against their heritage and succeed in their artform has rendered them unable to communicate. Compelling stuff, though.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Haskell comes off as a jerk -- but Mark somehow looks even worse: not just insincere but weak, vain and vindictive.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Tell Them Who You Are is indulgent by design, and the elder Wexler may be right about his son's aesthetic failings.