Music
IMAX | Release Date: February 12, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
23
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
6
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyFeb 12, 2021
Ziegler’s performance is the best thing about Music. For friends and family members of those on the spectrum, it’s a revelation and an acknowledgment that people with autism can be remarkable without having remarkable abilities like those found in Rain Man or Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael OrdonaFeb 11, 2021
While the movie is hit and miss, under the rookie’s direction, several veteran actors still turn in solid work. Read full review
40
EmpireBeth WebbFeb 16, 2021
Overused, hyper-stylised pop numbers aren’t enough to mask the catastrophic misjudgements that Sia has exercised here. Were Music merely hokey it could be forgiven, but its ham-fisted approach to sensitive issues make this a massive misfire. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 11, 2021
The trouble begins with a seasick lurching between fantasy and reality, it’s redoubled by subject matter that can’t support that, and it hits a whole arpeggio of duff notes with the casting. Read full review
40
Time OutStephen A RussellJan 23, 2021
The ‘bad sibling comes good helping the autistic one’ plotline isn’t exactly new (hullo, Rain Man), and there isn’t much more meat on the bones here. Where Music really stumbles, though, is in its fantasy musical interludes. Read full review
40
The GuardianLuke BuckmasterJan 19, 2021
The autistic characters feel more like dramatic tools to improve the circumstances of neurotypical people, rather than fully-fledged humans who think, feel and act on their own terms. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzFeb 10, 2021
There's nothing fun about panning a feature by a first-time director, especially when it seems to come from a place of good intentions, but Music, a musical fantasy drama about an autistic teen, is bad. Mystifyingly bad. Verging on "What were they thinking?" bad. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinFeb 11, 2021
While it has a few incidental felicities to admire, by and large Music is a sentimental atrocity so cringe-inducing it should come with an advisory warning for anyone with preexisting shoulder or back injuries. Read full review
30
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 9, 2021
Attempting to celebrate the power of community and new beginnings, Sia’s directorial debut mostly serves as an unintended cautionary tale about chronic whimsy and outdated ideas. Read full review
25
The PlaylistRoxana HadadiFeb 11, 2021
This movie is literally and figuratively saying music can save your life, but the execution is all treacle and dust—overly sweet and utterly empty. Read full review
25
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 11, 2021
Even if it’s possible to understand how Music got made, and even if you accept that Sia’s blinkered approach began with good intentions, such generous allowances don’t make this tone-deaf debacle any less difficult to stomach. Read full review
20
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriFeb 18, 2021
An old-fashioned piece of shameless hokum, Sia’s Music might be hilarious if it weren’t so offensive. Read full review
20
The Observer (UK)Simran HansFeb 14, 2021
These self-consciously upbeat moments clash horribly with the wider redemption narrative. Read full review
20
SlateSara LutermanFeb 12, 2021
"Why don’t you watch my film before you judge it?” Sia tweeted in November, when outrage about the movie’s casting started to percolate. Well, I have watched the film, I am judging it, and it’s awful. Read full review
20
Paste MagazineJoseph StanicharFeb 11, 2021
Music is a bad movie, but I wish that were all it was. I can handle its poor pacing and stiff dialogue, but even doing research and writing an essay on the film’s problematic elements pre-release were not enough to prepare me for how harmful Music is to autistic people. Read full review
20
The New York TimesTeo BugbeeFeb 11, 2021
This is a bizarre movie, one that parades confused ideas about care, fantasy and disability with a pride that reads as vanity. It is audacious, in the sense that making it certainly took some audacity. Read full review
10
Vanity FairRichard LawsonFeb 11, 2021
Ziegler has been handed a cursed, impossible task, forced to act so far outside of herself—with seemingly little of the right guidance coming from the grownups in the room—that Music becomes something ghastly. It often feels like a movie made decades ago, one of those smarmily well-intentioned Hollywood exercises in issue-peddling that demands the gratitude of an entire community of people. Read full review
0
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiFeb 16, 2021
Music is totally unwatchable. Read full review
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