Boyd van Hoeij

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Screen Daily, The Film Verdict, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety
For 336 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Boyd van Hoeij's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Call Me by Your Name
Lowest review score: 0 Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 205 out of 336
  2. Mixed: 122 out of 336
  3. Negative: 9 out of 336
336 movie reviews
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    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
    De Pencier’s cinematography has a good eye for the beauty and horror of man-made or -altered landscapes, and it is hard to deny that the film benefits from being seen on as large a screen as possible, as impressive crane or drone shots fill the screen. But like with Burtynsky’s photographs, it is also hard to deny that the beauty of these shots stands in stark contrast to their purported message.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    Makala
    The film was shot chronologically and this is clear in the increasing fluidity of Gras’ camerawork, which is less and less searching the closer they get to the city.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Way He Looks
    Ribeiro’s screenplay, which is marbled with moments of humor as well as emotion, feels extremely well-tuned into the conflicted emotional lives of his adolescent characters, who often retreat into the safety of their childhood comfort zone after every exciting, but also scary, excursion into the adult unknown.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    To the Bone
    Noxon, who also wrote the screenplay, manages to explore dark and complex issues while frequently leavening them with unexpected moments of humor.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Broken Circle Breakdown
    Sophisticated cutting brings out the story’s complex emotional undercurrents, though “Breakdown’s” less convincingly scripted second half sputters more often than it shines.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Gabrielle
    Despite a slightly grating tendency to resist any kind of subtlety, the honest and convincingly played central romance does finally linger.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision
    Though in several ways related to the previous Heimat films, this beautifully shot black-and-white feature is accessible even for those unfamiliar with Reitz’s previous work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Saint-Narcisse
    Overall, Saint-Narcisse is a wild ride that’s enjoyable in all its B-movie glory — the production design that’s just a little too kitschy, the dialogue that’s just a tad too ripe — while also titillating the intellect.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Painting (Le Tableau)
    Jean-Francois Laguionie’s consistently enjoyable, inventive and beautifully crafted tale is a color riot suitable for all ages.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Last One for the Road
    As the story travels from bittersweet to comic and back again, The Last One for the Road never feels like it explores new territory in terms of its characters and situations. But the specific setting both in time and place make it a very vivid portrait of a place ravaged, like its characters, by time, but hopeful that one last drink might enable things to be seen in a more positive light.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Boyd van Hoeij
    Scarred Hearts
    Whereas Aferim! was a thrilling epic that uncovered a piece of Romanian history heretofore largely ignored, Hearts hardly develops a pulse, hiding the faces of the protagonists in immobile medium and wide shots while any possible emotions get snowed under by non-contextualized intellectual musings and socio-politico-historical details.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    Amour Fou
    What’s finally tragic about their destiny of choice is not that the couple succeeded in becoming immortal together but that everything leading up to their death was the result of very banal actions and shot through with an extreme sense of loneliness.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    Monsoon
    As he did in Lilting, Khaou in Monsoon finely sketches the complex inner lives and identities of a small group of characters and plugs them into a narrative that unfolds gradually but precisely, so audiences have the time to consider the work's larger thematic concerns.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Boyd van Hoeij
    Papicha
    Very knowing about female friendships and the different possible reactions to forced social change, this is a lovingly acted film that, unfortunately, derails in the third act; the calamitous events depicted work fine as a blunt metaphor for where the country found itself or was headed, but doesn't convince on a narrative level or in terms of its psychological impact on the characters.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    Moka
    The sound of the zipper on Diane’s handbag, for example, becomes extremely ominous in Mermoud’s capable hands, while two distinct musical themes, written by Christian Garcia and Gregoire Hetzel, respectively, further enhance the mood and help establish the film’s bona fides as a classy and classical psychological thriller.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Boyd van Hoeij
    What Will People Say
    This is the second feature from Pakistani-Norwegian filmmaker Iram Haq, but unfortunately it lacks the nuance and insight of her impressively poignant yet controlled debut feature, I Am Yours.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Boyd van Hoeij
    Gabriel and the Mountain
    Barbosa doesn’t seem very interested in questioning Buchmann’s intentions — the idea of cultural appropriation never comes up, for starters — with the young man depicted as sincere if clearly naive.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Lover for a Day
    The screenplay...is very good in its many observational scenes, which here are more straightforward and less laced with irony and dark humor than in Women.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Boyd van Hoeij
    And Then We Danced
    No good performance can hide the fact that what happens during roughly the first hour is perhaps beautifully laid out and told but also extremely familiar. There is an expectation that Akin, also credited with the screenplay, will somehow step it up in the second half with a new twist or unexpected insight. But quite the opposite happens, as the narrative becomes both more melodramatic and erratic.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    Deerskin
    Slight but quite amusing ... But despite a few good gags and committed performances, the nagging suspicion that this eccentric concept would’ve worked better as a medium-length work or even a short remains.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Instinct
    It’s an ambitious and auspicious debut, even though not all of its frayed edges seem to be intentional.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    Everybody Knows
    If the film remains largely watchable it is because Farhadi has cast some of the finest actors in Spain and they know how to breathe life into their characters even when they don’t have all that much to do (though a few of them have quite a lot to say).
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Boyd van Hoeij
    Stations of the Cross
    Newcomer Van Acken is a phenomenal find and she’s never less than believably torn between doing the right thing and being her own person.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    Jesús
    Often shown in dark, flat and agitated closeups, Goic and Duran are both compelling performers.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Boyd van Hoeij
    Caniba
    Rather than sensationalizing their subject, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor never forget that Issei, while clearly troubled or ill or both, is still a human being, too. It is a testament to the talent of the directors, who also shot and edited the film, that such a complex moral stance rises organically from their material.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    Never Look Away
    The work’s considerations of the intimate connection among being, art and life finally feel quite superficial.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    My Best Part
    This is a bittersweet comedy-drama that manages to be hilarious in one scene and extremely touching in the next.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Divine Order
    The Divine Order (Die Goettliche Ordnung) is an entertaining, if largely predictable, story of an individual swept up in the tide of history.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Boyd van Hoeij
    The Wall
    Though complementary, the pic’s images and voiceover never quite fuse into a single whole.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Boyd van Hoeij
    A Brother's Love
    Though the story is about a woman looking for new bearings in her life, basically against her wishes, the overall tone is never outright depressing. The family meals verge on the burlesque, while other moments are more charmingly melancholy. This is due to not only the beautifully modulated performances, with Bosse, Hivon and Brochu all perfectly cast in their roles, but also to some nifty technical details.
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