The Commune
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: May 19, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMay 15, 2017
The movie may feel minor next to Vinterberg’s more serious work, but it’s more personal, too: A messy, tender window into the world that shaped him. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJul 25, 2016
The resulting drama offers a great showcase for Dyrholm, whose slide towards instability is the film’s core. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonJul 25, 2016
The Commune may veer towards sentimentality in the final act...but overall this is a warm, sharply characterised and absorbing melodrama. Read full review
75
Washington PostPat PaduaMay 25, 2017
Dyrholm, who deservedly took the prize for best actress at last year’s Berlinale for her sensitive performance as Anna, movingly captures the struggles of a middle-aged career woman who revels in the new freedoms of the 1970s, while ultimately falling victim to them. Read full review
74
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJun 1, 2017
All the components for bite are here, from unflattering character portraits to hideous amorality, but The Commune never clamps down quite as hard as you’d like it to. Your time won’t be wasted with the movie, but it won’t send you out of the theater scarred, either. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMay 18, 2017
As an ensemble movie, The Commune isn’t the most gripping, but when it zeroes in on Dyrholm’s affecting portrayal, it’s like Tolstoy’s famous line about the uniqueness of unhappy families, poignantly adapted for group living. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 18, 2017
This Danish-language film about a Copenhagen commune in the mid-1970s pulses with screwy energy and antic confusion. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 19, 2017
Dyrholm’s extraordinary performance is conspicuously better than Thomsen’s. She’s the best – the only – reason to check out The Commune. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Nathalie AtkinsonMay 20, 2017
The problem is it’s not that bizarre a love triangle and the interesting tangle of supporting stories and complications get short shrift by focusing there in the second half. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMay 15, 2017
The Thomas Vinterberg film's sentimentality is suspect, laced with an intriguing but vague strain of bitterness. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMay 18, 2017
Tobias Lindholm’s screenplay sacrifices credibility for quirkiness. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 11, 2016
The Commune doesn’t openly stumble so much as constrict itself awkwardly inside its main love triangle, short-changing the terrific supporting cast, and nearly forgetting what we thought it was all about. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 25, 2016
The lack of development in the supporting cast is a problem. Nothing, or almost nothing, of any consequence happens to these people. The title is a bit misleading: there is no real communal plot development. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonJul 25, 2016
The Commune effortlessly entertains at a TV sitcom level, with its pithy dialogue, its chorus of thinly drawn caricatures and its cozy sense of mockery towards the failed social experiments of past generations. But as serious cinema, it feels limited for the same reasons. Read full review
60
Screen DailyWendy IdeJul 25, 2016
The film is a patchwork portrait that combines the joys and irritations, the petty arguments and the homespun warmth of this environment. Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeJul 25, 2016
For Vinterberg, this uneven but nonetheless absorbing pic at least marks a return to characteristically bristly territory. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMay 17, 2017
Rather than portray a turbulent group dynamic, the film focuses on the marital woes of one particular couple, squandering its novel milieu on a banal conflict that would play out similarly in just about any context. Read full review
58
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaJul 25, 2016
Ends up probing largely universal quandaries to lackluster results. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyMay 19, 2017
The Commune, featuring a great ensemble cast (many Vinterberg regulars), doesn't really focus all that much on what happens when you put a bunch of charismatic individuals into one house. Read full review
50
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMay 18, 2017
The glue that should turn these individual moments into something resembling a unified cinematic experience just isn’t there. The Commune feels like fragments of a far more interesting film, haphazardly stitched together. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 25, 2016
Despite presenting an environment enriched to weapons-grade plutonium levels with potential for interpersonal drama, Vinterberg can’t seem to find any. Read full review
40
CineVuePatrick GambleMay 15, 2017
The Commune is a film built around the intangibility and melancholy of childhood memories. What should have been a gritty work about a generation confronted with the implausibility of their beliefs is ultimately a banal and self-absorbed drama. Read full review
More From This Movie

60 Critic Reviews

6.0 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 78 John Wick: Chapter 4
2 73 Creed III
3 67 Avatar: The Way of Water
4 63 Knock at the Cabin
5 62 Plane
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL