The Young Karl Marx
Agora Films | Release Date: February 23, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 22, 2018
The great virtue of The Young Karl Marx is its clarity, its ability to perceive the way the eddies of personal experience flow within the wider stream of history. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 22, 2018
Whatever else you think about Marx and his ideas, it's hard to imagine him as hot-blooded and young. Director and co-writer Raoul Peck, as it turns out, not only understands those contradictions, he is committed to embracing them, which is what makes The Young Karl Marx the audacious, engrossing film it is. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 18, 2017
It shouldn’t work, but it does, due to the intelligence of the acting and the stamina and concentration of the writing and directing. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallFeb 18, 2017
A spry romp through the seven years leading up to the drafting of the Communist Manifesto, Raoul Peck’s biopic of Karl Marx’s early years feels like a mix between a prestige BBC drama and a Marx For Dummies primer. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyFeb 23, 2018
The movie is largely a story of personalities. Karl is fiery, brilliant, disorganized, passionate. Engels is, despite his courage and curiosity, a bit more of a wide-eyed innocent and certainly a more organized person. Their female partners do take secondary roles, but the movie depicts them as committed, innovative, and acute: true fellow travelers and comrades. The actors portraying these figures are all exciting to watch. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 22, 2018
The actors do most of their best work in between the lines. Krieps, especially, provides a subtle symphony of feeling, even as her role confines her to a prescribed range of narrative support. Director Peck’s work is handsome; what it lacks is a true sense of danger, a feeling of history roiling in the present tense. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungFeb 18, 2017
An intellectually rigorous but stylistically staid peep at the 20-something author of Capital and The Communist Manifesto, Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx is at once historically impeccable and a filmic disappointment. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 18, 2017
It’s dutiful, but it’s also superficial and polite, and it commits the genteel sin of the old biopics: It turns its hero into a plaster saint. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 20, 2018
From its lifelessly anachronistic English dialogue to its Masterpiece Theatre lighting and production design, The Young Karl Marx tries to filter radical thought through the pace and aesthetics of a middlebrow drama. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 23, 2018
The Young Karl Marx disappointingly resembles for the most part a conventional biopic. It has little depth, either political or psychological. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlFeb 22, 2018
There’s something dazzling in the audacity of applying the most conventional and conservative techniques to the portrayal of radical thinkers and thoughts. That frisson keeps the movie interesting without quite jolting it to life. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 22, 2018
The movie’s plush, cozy aesthetic and unintentionally funny melodrama are at odds with its subjects: revolt, theory, originality, and observation. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenFeb 18, 2018
The film is ironically gripped by the sort of ideological "vagueness" that Krk Marx dismisses throughout. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 18, 2017
This immaculately furnished film sacrifices too much drama in order to expound upon its characters’ ideals, and sacrifices too much exploration of those ideals in order to accommodate for a healthy degree of drama. Read full review
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