Upstream Color
erbp | Release Date: April 5, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Time Out LondonTrevor JohnstonAug 27, 2013
If you’ve ever sat at your desk wondering whether there’s more to life, or been kept awake by an insidious hum in the darkness, this will speak to your soul – even as its enveloping, disturbing, uplifting story sends your mind reeling with giddy possibilities. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 11, 2013
Part science fiction scare movie, part offbeat romance, part completely unclassifiable, "Color" is also one-man filmmaking of a remarkable sort. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasApr 3, 2013
It might be fair to argue that the resonances of Upstream Color are too obscure and internal — many viewers have and will be baffled by it — but it’s the type of art that inspires curiosity and obsession, like some beautiful object whose meaning remains tantalizingly out of reach. Read full review
100
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezFeb 5, 2013
You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 18, 2013
Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 5, 2013
Upstream Color is routinely confusing but not oppressively so; its final exquisite moments explain little yet still manage to invite you in. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 25, 2013
It’s all a neat trick. Or exercise. Or brain-teaser. Whatever you want to call it, Upstream Color is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. But once you have seen it, once isn’t going to be enough Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniMay 9, 2013
Dense, richly textured, and emotionally fraught - uplifting and devastating in equal parts - Shane Carruth's masterful sophomore effort is an abstract, elusive, but emotionally engaging love story that's more tone poem than drama. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughApr 11, 2013
Henry David Thoreau plays an enigmatic role in Shane Carruth’s hypnotic thriller — an oxymoronic term to describe a film that is truly sui generis. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesSimon AbramsApr 3, 2013
A romance, a thriller, and a science-fiction drama, Upstream Color tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineCalum MarshMar 19, 2013
Upstream Color is lush, rhythmic, and deeply sensual, a film of exceptional beauty. Read full review
83
Film.comWilliam GossFeb 26, 2013
As willfully oblique as his first film was densely foreboding, a rumination on the perils and pleasures of interpersonal connection that would seem to refuse any easy connection with even the most curious of audiences. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 2, 2013
It is invigoratingly freaky and strange, with a Death-Valley-dry sense of humour somewhere underneath — though a little derivative sometimes. More than once, Carruth gives us a close-up on a hand ruminatively stroking a surface: very Malick. And the shots of creepy creatures swarming under the skin are very Cronenberg. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanAug 26, 2013
How to sum up? You have to make synapse-spark connections, interpret events to your own satisfaction, pick up visual cues (a long stretch of the film is dialogue-free) and be happy with not knowing all the answers (you know, like in life — but not in most motion pictures). A perfectly judged, strikingly beautiful film, but also a lunatic enterprise which invites — even welcomes — befuddlement as much as wonder. A true original. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt GlasbyAug 24, 2013
Carruth’s furiously elusive second film skirts the line between nonsense and near-masterpiece, like Terrence Malick filleting "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind." Read full review
80
The TelegraphDavid GrittenApr 26, 2013
Carruth creates a wholly compelling world. And despite my irritation with his deliberate obscurity, my immediate desire when it ended was to stay in my seat and watch it all the way through again. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirApr 4, 2013
So Upstream Color is defiantly pitched in its own idiosyncratic key, but it bears the unmistakable influence of Carruth’s fellow Texan Terrence Malick and also of Steven Soderbergh’s early films. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 4, 2013
With its fragmentation and mysteries, Upstream Color offers itself up as a puzzle as well as a philosophical toy that you can spin and spin until the cafe closes and kicks you into the night. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinApr 1, 2013
I’ve seen Upstream Color twice and liked it enormously while never being certain of anything. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 5, 2013
Upstream Colors certainly is something to see if you’re into brilliant technique, expressive editing, oblique storytelling, obscuritanist speculative fiction or discovering a significant new actress. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangFeb 5, 2013
This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than "Primer," not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereApr 11, 2013
Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a deliberate exercise in swooning obscurity. You either go with its considerable sensory powers or you scratch a groove on your head. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 24, 2013
Meticulous and abstruse, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is an idiosyncratic film that invites explication but defies total understanding. Read full review
63
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeApr 4, 2013
This enigma-delivery system from a sharp mind has enthralling moments but becomes a bit enervating in its self-seriousness. By the end, the whole thing feels more academic than mind-bending. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 4, 2013
Upstream Color is weird, but it’s worth the time. Read full review
60
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekApr 2, 2013
To be bewildered by Upstream Color is to be human; the story is obtuse by design, though the filmmaking is X-Acto precise. But it's a bloodless movie, and its ideas aren't as tricky or complex as Carruth's arch, mannered approach might suggest. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 2, 2013
No one is going to explain any of this for you — and the slightly snobby implication of Upstream Color is that explanations are for suckers. Read full review
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