Under the Silver Lake
A24 | Release Date: April 19, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMay 16, 2018
The ambition of Under the Silver Lake is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you’ll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloApr 16, 2019
Enabling and mocking paranoid obsession at the same time might sound incoherent. In this hilariously demented spin on L.A. noir, it’s simply honest. Read full review
83
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaMay 16, 2018
The plot’s construction might be derivative, but its serpentine execution is flawless, providing enough crazy turns and zany characters to sustain an escalating momentum for Silver Lake‘s nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 16, 2018
It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 14, 2019
If this is Mitchell trying to go full-bore David Lynch – as a zine author and oddball collector, he pointedly casts Patrick Fischler, aka the diner-nightmare guy from Mulholland Drive and a sinister bureaucrat in Twin Peaks – he’s certainly not holding back. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 16, 2018
If the destination ultimately proves a little less satisfying than the trip, Mitchell and his collaborators fill us with so many moody reveries that we succumb to its warped logic and indelible vividness. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 5, 2019
The dread in Mitchell’s film never cuts to the bone, because we never really care about his characters. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJun 5, 2019
A mostly meaningless film about meaninglessness, Under the Silver Lake nonetheless has enough fetid charm to justify wasting a few hours on it. After all, the movie ultimately suggests that wasting our time is the best we can do in this rotten, rigged life. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyApr 19, 2019
No matter how shaggy and self-indulgent it is, or how anticlimactic its big so-what of an ending ends up being, I was never bored. More than that, I kind of dug its sheer swing-for-the-fences insanity. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoApr 18, 2019
That it doesn’t quite come together in the second half after a riveting first hour is disappointing, but there’s still too much to like here to discard it as much as A24 seems to be doing. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 16, 2018
The pervasive but almost offhand menace is supplied by Mitchell’s impeccable, widescreen mise-en-scène; the ordinary dread he locates in an unglamorous, mundane L.A.; and the way even the film’s comedy seems perched on the edge of unease. Read full review
70
SlateInkoo KangApr 19, 2019
It doesn’t help that the plot is tortuous, and the resolution is an inarguable letdown. And yet! Mitchell’s ambitions, observations, and moods make the picture a dippy blast, like a hallucinatory trip that definitely goes on too long but is well worth the insights and surprises. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMay 19, 2018
Under the Silver Lake isn’t an homage so much as a remix of classic Hollywood tropes, which positions itself and its contemporary hipster characters less as the continuation of history than the end of it. Read full review
67
ConsequenceDan CaffreySep 29, 2018
Its aesthetics alone are enough to sustain interest over its two-and-a-half hour runtime, but its hefty length also leaves a lot to be desired in its messaging, if only because Mitchell actually does begin to flirt with a grander purpose at a certain point in the film. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 20, 2019
Enough conspiracies and secret codes to make Dan Brown sit up and take notice. All this and more can be found in David Robert Mitchell’s bizarre, trippy Under the Silver Lake, where the plot at times seems as perpetually stoned as Andrew Garfield’s lead character. Read full review
62
IGNRafael MotamayorOct 12, 2018
Under the Silver Lake never finds a reason for being as weird as it is, making for a confusing and frustrating experience despite its hypnotic visuals and great score. Read full review
60
EmpireBen TravisMar 11, 2019
Under The Silver Lake is gorgeous to look at and listen to, with moments of genuine panache, but its wilfully labyrinthine plot will have limited appeal. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushEmma StefanskyMay 17, 2018
Films like this about slow-burn conspiracies that take ages to unravel their cheeky premises rarely live up to all the work that goes into watching them get there, and Under the Silver Lake is no different. Its final resolution flops to the ground like an airless balloon after all the toil it took to find it. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 16, 2018
Under the Silver Lake gets its hooks in you, but it’s a good-bad movie: an academic stab at making the darkness visible. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMay 16, 2018
Like any conspiracy theorist, you sense that landing on an actually airtight unified theory would almost spoil the fun for Mitchell. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckApr 17, 2019
A sort of high-gloss, nicely crafted daydream with a good score and generous references to LA noir films. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 17, 2019
The sweet smarts of Mitchell’s first movie, “The Myth of the American Sleepover” (treated to a bit of auto-allusion in “Silver Lake”) aren’t much in evidence here. Nor are the slippery psychosexual scares of “It Follows,” his breakthrough horror movie from 2015. The ambitions this time are grander, but also vaguer and duller. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayApr 16, 2019
Even after the film (quite entertainingly) explains itself, it never feels like more than a howl of frustration and cynicism. Read full review
50
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMay 19, 2018
Mitchell has interesting ideas, and his actors seem to be having fun, but that’s not enough when the film itself lacks atmosphere, or tension, or emotional engagement. Read full review
50
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 16, 2018
Mitchell has made a stylish, occasionally intriguing film, by turns idiosyncratically funny and downright scary. But he says and shows a lot of bothersome things throughout, which I’m not quite sure how to approach. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 16, 2018
Despite a compelling lead in Andrew Garfield, the tension dissipates rather than mounts as this knotty neo-noir slides into a Lynchian swamp of outre weirdness. Read full review
42
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 17, 2018
With Under the Silver Lake Mitchell saw all the lights on the long highway to success turn green, and in the full flush of all that indulged freedom, put the top down, turned up the radio and roared off into the LA evening, forgetting that he didn’t have anywhere to go. Read full review
40
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 16, 2019
Not even the haunting images and Garfield’s haggard intensity can disguise the gaping void where the film’s soul should be. There’s no there there. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 17, 2018
Mitchell’s third film feels like a script that was locked in a drawer after numerous rejections but now can be brought out and pushed through with clout earned from the success of It Follows. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 17, 2019
There is an occasional sense of self-awareness that this is all pointless and silly, but 139 minutes is a long time for a film to forgo even delayed gratification. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 16, 2018
This film just wades into a murky lake of self-consciousness and sinks inexorably to the bottom. Read full review
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