David Jenkins

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Little White Lies
For 238 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 34% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 61% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

David Jenkins' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Her
Lowest review score: 20 Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 115 out of 238
  2. Mixed: 106 out of 238
  3. Negative: 17 out of 238
238 movie reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    The Settlers
    This is the western as a dried, coruscating corpse, left out for the buzzards to feed on.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Other People's Children
    As a follow-up to her exceptional – and sadly underseen – An Easy Girl from 2019, Other People’s Children could and should finally cement Zlotowski’s place in the top class of European auteurs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Architecton
    The film’s thesis is often a little obvious, yearning for a return to a brand of architecture whose half-life isn’t so slim, but ignoring the arduous and exploitative construction methods that were used to produce those grandiose structures of yore.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    The Goldman Case
    It’s a compelling and immersive drama which attains a contemporary relevance without ever really trying too hard.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Dune: Part Two
    The first half of Dune: Part Two is among the best things that Villeneuve has ever done, though the sheer eventfulness of the plot and a bustling retinue of side-players (Austin Butler upgrading Sting’s cod-pieced ninny from the 1984 film into a hairless psychopath is worthy of mention) means that the final act does feel rushed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 David Jenkins
    Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
    Apollo 10 ½ is about the subjective intimacy of history, and how all events are just an equally-sized, vibrantly-coloured fragment in the kaleidoscope of our mind.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    Return to Dust
    Despite these subtle barbs, Return to Dust ends up as an elegiac love story as the unlikely couple form a bond built on a foundation of total understanding and empathy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Twinless
    As a writer and director, Sweeney shows much promise, at times demonstrating the swaggering confidence of the Canadian upstart, Xavier Dolan – the pair even look quite similar. Yet the film works best as a showcase for exemplary range of O’Brien.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Conclave
    It’s all competently performed and executed, with loud booms of sound cued to each scene change as an attempt to ramp up the tension, and lots of behind-the-head tracking shots of cardinals anxiously pacing through corridors and stairways.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Official Competition
    Even though the film is packed with belly laughs, it is never spiteful or denigratory, and always appears thankful for the fact that pampered artists can produce miracles if they’re given the time and resources to do so.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Dìdi
    There’s a breezy panache to Wang’s direction, and he’s very good at capturing the comic skulduggery of, say, early instant messaging apps. It’s a shame, then, that it doesn’t have an original bone in its gangly, hunched frame.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 David Jenkins
    Il Buco
    It’s a magnificent piece of work, completely beguiling from end to end and one which wears its immense philosophical profundity with admirable lightness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Enys Men
    In ambition, achievement and Jenkin’s future as an image-maker of esoteric esteem, this is a big step up from Bait.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    The Card Counter
    It’s a supremely compelling tale leavened by its wry humour and a subtle commentary on the essential emptiness of American life.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
    Harari’s film is a practical, simple and saddening document of everyday madness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 David Jenkins
    Miroirs No. 3
    As with the titular Ravel piece, this is a work that is mellifluous, melodious and mysterious in equal measure. A Sphinx-like Beer, once again, seems to connect with her director on a level which transcends the purely professional, and through her economic yet forceful use of body language and expression, she makes certain that the film adheres perfectly to Petzold’s immaculate calculations.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    It's Not Me
    Beyond the archness and cynicism, there are some profound, self-reflective insights about what it means to make moving images in the 21st century.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Blue Moon
    There are points here where it feels as if Linklater was trying to make a gender-switched version of Fassbinder’s tragic The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, but without really leaning into the forceful bitterness and agency of the protagonist, and opting to have the text make a more profound point about the precarious nature of power and influence.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    Christmas, Again
    It’s a tender and warm film about missed connections and ships that, for whatever reason, end up passing in the night.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    You Will Die At Twenty
    At times it’s a little too ponderous, and sometimes struggles to bring variation and surprise to its runtime. Yet this laconic, meditative drama muses on the nature of time and the revelation that, even though Muzamil’s predicament seems highly unlikely to the rational onlooker, the knowledge he accrues is pertinent to all mortals.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 David Jenkins
    Hoard
    It’s a film that heads to the shadowy spots that most filmmakers on this sceptred isle don’t even know exist; every frame exuding both a breathless confidence and a warped visual literacy which suggests a director on a mission to do anything to make an audience feel something – which is completely refreshing to behold.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    On the Adamant
    What’s most important here is how Philibert captures the patience of the nurses and attendants, who never ever interrupt or talk down to the people whose conditions and wellbeing are L’Adamant’s raison d’être.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Empire of Light
    As a whole, the film doesn’t really work, as Mendes is far more successful in dealing with psychological issues than he is with political ones.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    28 Years Later
    It’s a film which man­ages to have its daft thrills and con­vinc­ing­ly piv­ot to wist­ful philo­soph­i­cal intro­spec­tion, and while there are cer­tain­ly some rough edges and unex­plored plot avenues, it prob­a­bly counts as one of Boyle’s strongest works this cen­tu­ry.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 David Jenkins
    By the Stream
    It’s a film about making art that feels good in the moment, as the act itself can be as rewarding – and possibly even more so – than the delivery of that art to an audience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    Julie Keeps Quiet
    It’s not a film that does anything particularly new, in the dutifully linear way it tells the story to the ultra-functional shooting style. Yet its satisfaction comes from its careful release of information, it’s ambience of encroaching dread and the subtle psychological twists that push Julie ever closer to that euphoric breaking point.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 David Jenkins
    All You Need Is Death
    This is a grimly refreshing and confident toe-dip into the world of horror, and we hope Duane choses to revisit this atmospherically murky pool.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 David Jenkins
    Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
    It’s a fun little diversion that’s more interested in the salacious gossip and anecdotes than it is offering a more broad inquiry into how these artworks more generally enhance the music they’re being used to sell.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 David Jenkins
    Spencer
    On paper Stewart seemed like an eccentric casting choice, yet she slinks into the material with grace and ease, and her trademark arsenal of half-met glares and anxiety-dashed grimaces perfectly express her desperate yearning to be free of prettified toff prison.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 David Jenkins
    Asteroid City
    Asteroid City is Anderson’s most complete, rich and surprising film to date, and perhaps his most autobiographical in some obscure, allegorical way, in that it stands as testament to how filmmaking is about bringing artists together and attuning them to a specific wavelength. On a more superficial level, it’s a film which pushes his patented funny/sad dichotomy to its wildest and most enjoyable extremes.
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