The Edge of Democracy
Netflix | Release Date: June 19, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyGuy LodgeJun 19, 2019
The Edge of Democracy makes no claims to objectivity. This is documentary cinema in which facts tangle compellingly with feeling, while passages of solemn, stately mood-building split the difference. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 18, 2019
What “Edge” is especially good at is detailing how Costa gradually began to see things differently, to see the corruption investigation as an attempt by the oligarchy to reassert itself, to take power via a kind of legislative/judicial coup because it could not do so by the ballot. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 18, 2019
Though she is a scrupulous and dogged digger-up of hidden facts and a thoughtful interpreter of public events, Costa hasn’t produced a work of objective journalism or detached historical scholarship so much as a personal reckoning with her nation’s past and present. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmJun 20, 2019
Like her brilliant 2012 debut feature, “Elena,” which recounted the “inconsolable memory” of Costa’s older sister prior to her suicide, the director’s latest work, The Edge of Democracy, is haunted by loss. Read full review
80
The GuardianLeslie FelperinJun 21, 2019
Throughout, Costa’s voiceover adds shape but doesn’t intrude excessively and lets the powerful compilation of original and archive footage, material shot on the ground in the middle of riots and by drones soaring hundreds of feet above Brasilia, tell the story. Read full review
80
Screen DailyAllan HunterJun 19, 2019
Costa’s use of news footage, tapes of incriminating conversations that were made public and acts of self-serving betrayal gives The Edge Of Democracy the feel of an All The President’s Men-style political thriller. Further revelations about her own family and the allegiances of earlier generations turn that aspect of the story into something with the sweep of The Godfather. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeJun 19, 2019
A mournful but clear-eyed look at one of the many governments on the planet currently either going to or simmering in Hell, Petra Costa's The Edge of Democracy is as much essay film as a primer on Brazil's recent history. Read full review
78
TheWrapSteve PondJun 18, 2019
In laying out the facts, Costa is, for the most part, posing a series of sad questions rather than supplying the answers; in truth, she may not know whether she’s documenting a stormy political era or chronicling the end of something. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 16, 2020
The Edge of Democracy won’t convince that “It CAN happen here.” It’ll make you wonder how far down the hole we’ve already tumbled. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJun 19, 2019
At what point does a story about one failing democracy become a story about all failing democracies? Perhaps there’s no way of knowing until it’s already too late. Read full review
75
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaJun 3, 2019
While the film provides a useful record of a specific chapter in this ongoing nightmare, as an investigation it comes up with few new insights that can help us make sense of it. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJun 20, 2019
While the film often feels like a slow-motion real-world horror story, it’s not without hope. For Brazil, liberty once existed. Can it exist again? And what does that mean for the rest of the world? Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaJun 18, 2019
The documentary’s scope is so vast, and its subject so dense, that it ends up skimping on details that a lengthy written article would likely lay out more clearly. Read full review
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