Monrovia, Indiana

Name: Monrovia, Indiana
Genre: Documentary
Released: October 26, 2018
Duration: 143 min
Rating: 78

2018

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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6.0

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6.0	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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Monrovia, Indiana

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Movie Details & Credits

Zipporah Films | Release Date: October 26, 2018 | Not Rated

Summary: Monrovia, Indiana explores a small town in rural, mid-America and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity and authenticity are formed, experienced and lived along with conflicting stereotypes. The film gives a complex and nuanced view of daily life in Monrovia and provides some understanding of a wayMonrovia, Indiana explores a small town in rural, mid-America and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity and authenticity are formed, experienced and lived along with conflicting stereotypes. The film gives a complex and nuanced view of daily life in Monrovia and provides some understanding of a way of life whose influence and force have not always been recognized or understood in the big cities on the east and west coasts of America and in other countries. [Venice]… Expand

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 143 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

RogerEbert.com Glenn Kenny

Oct 26, 2018

Wiseman himself is also the last person who’d call his films “objective,” because they’re not. It’s more that their point of view is multi-faceted, sophisticated, connoting a point of view that’s deeply felt but not on-the-nose obvious. Read full review

100

Chuck Bowen

Sep 8, 2018

As always with Frederick Wiseman, it’s the quotidian gestures that haunt one in Monrovia, Indiana. Read full review

Lee Marshall

Sep 11, 2018

In its austere way, this is classic Wiseman, a film that takes us into the heart of a community and reveals its inner workings, comforts, fractures and traumas. It’s also a fine example of the way the director sculpts and moulds his material to create an arc that is both dramatic and poetic. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

Oct 25, 2018

In the realm of documentary films, as in the news media, polemicists are ascendant, but Frederick Wiseman isn’t one of them. For the past half-century, since his first film, “Titicut Follies,” he’s been an observationist. Not an observer, which carries a passive connotation, but a filmmaker who’s made a distinguished career of observing in a particular way — closely, calmly, shrewdly and systematically, with an eye to the institutions and social structures that shape and reveal people’s lives. Read full review

David Lewis

Nov 7, 2018

Unmistakable political overtones populate the documentary Monrovia, Indiana, an examination of day-to-day life in a small, red-state town. Read full review

Deborah Young

Sep 11, 2018

The film has its resonant moments, notably a wedding and a funeral. But it is by no means the jewel in the crown of a series that most recently has included electrifying docs like At Berkeley, In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: The New York Public Library. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Oct 25, 2018

Wiseman has filmed and under-edited what amounts to a public record of a sliver of a village captured at one moment in time, playing up the boredom, celebrating the pace of life yet never noting its problems or discovering its charms. Read full review

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User Reviews

duanewilliams

Jan 13, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This film is extremely boring, unless you like looking at fields of corn. I tried to understand why anyone would make this film and I couldn't imagine what the point was. You get to sit through a boring award ceremony in a Masonic Lodge. Who cares? You get to listen to town leaders talk about why they can't do anything about giving residents of a new development better fire protection. If you can manage to sit through the first couple hours, you get to sit through the final scene of the film, a complete funeral service and burial ceremony! It goes on and on, with apparently no editing. You get to suffer with all those who attended in person, except that you didn't know the deceased and it means nothing to you. This is without a doubt one of the worst films I have ever sat through. I should have walked out, but I kept thinking there must have been a point to it, given the good critical reviews, but there was no point at all.… Expand

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