Serena Donadoni

Select another critic »
L.A. Weekly, Village Voice
For 156 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 0.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Serena Donadoni's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Giant
Lowest review score: 20 The Letters
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 96 out of 156
  2. Mixed: 56 out of 156
  3. Negative: 4 out of 156
156 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    Giant
    Key to Giant‘s enduring appeal is the meshing of outsize stars with Ferber’s characters: Closeted sex symbol Hudson’s towering Bick fills the big boots of his ranching family while struggling with the demands of traditional masculine authority. The taboo-breaking Taylor is the seductive, whip-smart Leslie, an assured reformer who views the injustices visited upon the ranch’s Mexican workers with maternal concern...And then there’s Dean’s most mannered, complex performance: Jett is at once transparent and enigmatic, hardening with age while the other characters mature. The actor’s death — a year before release — adds a keen poignancy to the character’s lost potential.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    A River Below
    The intoxicating A River Below contains elements of immersive nature documentaries and shocking wildlife exposes (like Blackfish and The Cove), but director Mark Grieco’s profile of two driven conservationists tells a more slippery tale.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 100 Serena Donadoni
    Casablanca
    Casablanca was filmed in the safety of the Warner Bros. lot, but the cast of immigrants and exiles who had fled the Third Reich conveyed their visceral fear. While the future was uncertain, the resolute characters of this exquisite wartime drama found peace through love and resistance.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Tampopo
    Everyone needs nourishment, and Itami found humor and poignancy in how it’s provided and received.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Truman
    The film is restrained and observational, its impact cumulative.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    The Watermelon Woman
    Funny and smart, full of biting humor and astute observations about identity and history, Cheryl Dunye's audacious, joyous debut feature captures the process of falling hopelessly in love with the movies.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
    While acknowledging some missteps (such as jumping into a strenuous project too soon after surgery), Saffire and Schlesinger exhibit Whelan’s grace in dance and in life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Ascent
    In Fiona Tan’s glorious ode to a Japanese volcano, Mount Fuji is both geological marvel and malleable symbol, its solidity and grandeur inspiring conquest and contemplation.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    The Phenom
    The Phenom unfolds as a series of quiet, incisive conversations that showcase subtle, insightful performances.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Tully
    Tully encapsulates the psychological process of maturity with pithy humor and vertiginous insight. Tully’s appearance may have seemed like a magical interlude, but she solidifies Marlo’s reality by exposing the path that led her there.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Miss Meadows
    Holmes and Dale are ideal together, turning a polite courtship and charged relationship (including a sex scene that's both giddy and profound) into a twisted, compelling expression of unconditional love.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    As much as this latest installment draws on affection for the snappy first film, it's the differences that make Bridget Jones's Baby the warmest and most satisfying of the series.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Valley of Saints
    Valley of Saints is a marvel of neorealism, with nonprofessional actors facing the same hurdles as their characters and writer/director Syeed improvising in shifting circumstances.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    Cries from Syria
    His interviews are informative and captivating, but the film’s gut-punch immediacy comes from the astounding visuals caught by participants on digital cameras and cellphones, including shocking images of Assad’s torturers at work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Serena Donadoni
    MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.
    With Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., Loveridge celebrates the mashup aesthetic that enabled the artist to find a voice, and reveals that reconciling contradictions — like an outrageous sense of humor and earnest political activism — is key to both Arulpragasam’s music and the life she’s constructed with audacity and wit.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Dream Boat
    For all the outrageous cosplay and assless trunks on display, director Tristan Ferland Milewski is more interested in exploring the interior lives of gay men.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Holy Air
    The humor in Shady Srour’s Holy Air isn’t entirely satirical, but the bone-dry wit is breathtaking.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Left on Purpose
    An anguished and compassionate chronicle of Schein and Vishner's relationship.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    The Swan
    Anchored by a remarkable child’s performance, The Swan is a sensitive example of an overlooked element in coming-of-age films: awakening to the outside world.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Brahmin Bulls
    Brahmin Bulls focuses on the individual choices made by Ashok and Sid, but just as Gingger Shankar subtly weaves traditional Indian instrumentation throughout her lovely score, Pailoor touches upon how cultural expectations inform their relationship.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Strange Weather
    In a quivering, bone-deep performance, Hunter takes Darcy from a mother encased in guilt to a woman who can acknowledge her shattering loss while still recognizing her right to be alive.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Never Steady, Never Still
    Usually a tart-tongued scene-stealer, Henderson is devoid of her trademark hauteur in this remarkable performance.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Alive and Kicking
    The dancers in Alive and Kicking all share a rapturous expression, and Glatzer makes the case for this Depression-era diversion as a modern tonic for isolation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Goldstone
    When the violence comes, as it must, Sen stages his shoot-outs with the physical and emotional wallop of the best westerns, but he’s more interested in restoring the faith of law enforcement officers whose belief in justice has eroded.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Jinn
    There’s nothing preachy about Jinn, even though Nijla Mu’min’s elegant debut feature is about a teenager coming to terms with her mother’s newly embraced religion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Angels Wear White
    Qu unpacks much that matters in Angels Wear White, including the abuse of power and importance of status and wealth in Chinese society, but her most thoughtful, nuanced observations involve female sexuality.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Loving Vincent
    An engrossing exploration of the artist’s final days rendered in his signature painting style.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Sand Dollars
    Guzmán and Cárdenas present this tropical island as both Anne's romantic refuge and Noelí's exploitative landscape, a beautiful, enchanting — and realistic — Eden where snakes are merely snakes.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    After Auschwitz
    The structure of After Auschwitz may be simple (talking heads and archival footage), but the cumulative effect of six women revealing the physical, psychological, and emotional toll taken on Holocaust survivors is a powerful testament to individual humanity emerging from inhuman horrors.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    West
    Schwochow's intimate, handheld camerawork often feels like surveillance, which transforms mundane events into the menacing moments of a psychological thriller.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Almost There
    After guiding his fate, the filmmakers step back and dispassionately capture a series of frustrated caregivers passing the baton, each nudging Anton toward a new life. This decision makes Almost There a richer, more compassionate portrait.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Bad Hurt
    Grief unleashes the possibility of change in this wrenching drama, allowing for an unexpected emotional thaw that rewards both stubborn optimism and traumatic resilience.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Donald Cried
    In a bitterly funny performance, Avedisian lets Donald's freak flag fly, a big-toothed grin lighting up his face, framed by a shaggy haircut not deliberate enough to be a mullet.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    White Sun
    Adopting the philosophy of neorealism, Rauniyar reveals the overarching forces (religion, caste, patriarchy) that forge Nepali communities, but his characters are also profoundly shaped by individual decisions.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young
    [A] lighthearted and immensely entertaining doc.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Good Manners
    Rojas and Dutra have created a singular fable where anxiety and fear are directed inward, even when the danger is all too real.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Freak Show
    [A] bitterly funny and warmly empathetic first feature.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Oh Lucy!
    Hirayanagi acknowledges that reinvention isn’t as simple as trading Setsuko’s messy stagnation for Lucy’s zany possibility. What Setsuko fears most is losing everything, but that may be her best option.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Be Here Now
    Foster makes it deeper, using an observational style to reveal the intricacies of a progressive disease and candid interviews with Andy and Vashti to strip away the veneer of celebrity implacability.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Copenhagen
    [An] exquisitely beautiful feature debut.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    The Creeping Garden
    Heady and rigorous, The Creeping Garden is an illuminating science documentary that tickles the imagination.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Serena Donadoni
    Abundant Acreage Available
    After a lifetime of routine punctuated by loss, these aging adults fall back into roles as children and siblings. Treading common ground, they seek comfort in the suffocating succor of family, afraid to release the burdens that grief will unleash.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Soufra
    In the nourishing documentary Soufra, Thomas Morgan shows the claustrophobic living conditions and dangerous infrastructure of the tightly packed concrete towers, and chronicles how Lebanese government bureaucracy maintains the camp’s invisible borders and keeps occupants in a permanent state of legal limbo.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Sidemen: Long Road to Glory
    Sidemen seems at first like a didactic cultural corrective. It’s only when Rosenbaum digs into the trio’s life stories that their historic impact becomes clear:.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Anything
    Early absorbs Freda’s pain into his own, and McNeil builds a delicate idyll from their defiant embrace of unexpected second chances.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    War Story
    Jackson and co-screenwriter Kristin Gore prize ambiguity, allowing for cathartic revelations but no easy resolutions.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Kangaroo
    Kangaroo is a sobering depiction of how deep cultural divides affect the future of a species, even one so seemingly ubiquitous and resilient.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Measure of a Man
    The portentously titled Measure of a Man is at once an escapist fantasy and sensitive portrait of adolescent transformation.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    As You Are
    Constructed as a mystery, As You Are offers glimpses into intense adolescent bonds, just enough to remind baffled onlookers that they don't have a clue.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Diplomacy
    Arestrup and Dussollier originated these roles on stage, but Schlöndorff (who directed the Hoffman/Malkovich Death of a Salesman) gives it the immediacy of a life-and-death encounter.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Santa & Andrés
    With quiet precision, Lechuga (Melaza) charts Andrés’s resilience and Santa’s awakening, using a naturalistic visual style and sparse dialogue that reveals how these characters instinctively read between the lines.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Beach House
    The atmosphere of Jason Saltiel’s debut feature is decidedly chilly despite the summer heat. With icy precision reminiscent of Claude Chabrol, Saltiel captures the social intricacies of affluent leisure.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    I Touched All Your Stuff
    Bühler and Mariani make their process part of the narrative, deconstructing the documentary form while delving into Kirk's copious digital life.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Manifesto
    The actress is equally committed, regardless of whether content and context click, but she soars when they do.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Beautiful Something
    Writer-director Joseph Graham isn't solely interested in hookups, and he uses the encounters between these men (both carnal and cerebral) to construct a compassionate romantic drama.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Blue Jay
    Lehmann shot Blue Jay in a gorgeous black-and-white that looks like silver gelatin prints (a photographic process that captures boundless gradations of gray), which complements the story's heartfelt simplicity.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Cut Bank
    Without his usual tics, Malkovich is a wonder, quietly transforming an unassuming town fixture into Cut Bank's conscience. But the revelatory performance is Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) as Derby Milton.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Flight Fantastic
    The Flight Fantastic is both a lively biography of the Mexican circus family and a primer on trapeze as both art form and joyous expression.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Harry & Snowman
    The engaging Harry & Snowman shows the impact of a rescue animal on the man who saw his neglected qualities. It's also a succinct demonstration of the difference between a livelihood and a life's work.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Carrie Pilby
    In her directorial debut, Susan Johnson balances the character's haughty brilliance and aimless privilege with an underlying vulnerability.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    All Mistakes Buried
    Even when all the puzzling pieces of Sonny's existence don't quite fit, Trammell's beautifully unhinged performance offers a compelling vision of a grieving narcissist burrowing into the rabbit hole of his own mind.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Mavis!
    Edwards is content with presenting Mavis as she sees herself: as the conduit for a song's message, and a voice to uplift the weary.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Cash Only
    Cash Only features many familiar action movie markers, but it's distinguished by a raw energy and strong sense of place.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    P.S. Jerusalem
    P.S. Jerusalem is as modest as a home movie but profoundly captures the conflict between individual conscience and national identity.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Cupcakes
    This musical comedy is sugary and sincere.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Félix And Meira
    The restrained performances of Dubreuil and Yaron (Fill the Void) gradually reveal the flaws and strengths of this fragile couple, while Twersky is quietly devastating as an abandoned husband who fully understands devotion and sacrifice.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Shine
    While Saldivar and Burgos are better dancers than actors, Collado and Flores are incredibly charismatic performers who bring every scene they’re in to life, but it’s Zayas who anchors Shine. His gravitas shot through with mischief sets the film’s tone, showing that serious-minded storytelling can still be fun.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine
    Josue tries to reclaim his narrative with this intimate, positive portrait, but while Shepard's brave and resourceful parents encourage her, they realized long ago that his death means he no longer belongs solely to them.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Quest of Alain Ducasse
    In his astute look at the artistry and business of food, de Maistre makes the case that haute cuisine serves the same function as haute couture, creating an indelible experience while encouraging new ideas to filter through the industry.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
    In this unhurried full version, Benson allows grief to transform his characters, with few guarantees and plenty of regrets.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
    In this unhurried full version, Benson allows grief to transform his characters, with few guarantees and plenty of regrets.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Wedding Plan
    What makes the film work is Koler's magnetic performance as Michal, who has screwball energy and a mind of her own.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Tomorrow
    What Laurent and Dion do best is present pockets of progressive change as blueprints for idealism in action.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    God Help the Girl
    Browning captures Eve's weariness and enthusiasm, and her lovely voice and crisp delivery gives Murdoch's labored lyrics a vulnerable immediacy.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Whisky Galore!
    Instead of glorifying the amber liquid, Whisky Galore! is a love letter to an isolated community trapped in amber.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Escapes
    When Fancher’s weathered visage finally appears, he recounts more regrets than triumphs, but in Almereyda’s affectionate biographical scrapbook, his accomplishments are small manifestations of an iconoclastic existence whose reward is a messy, cherished independence.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    #Stuck
    Acher adroitly juggles all the gimmickry, using it to comment on Holly and Guy's burgeoning relationship.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Making Rounds
    Making Rounds demonstrates the real value of medicine with a human touch.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    October Gale
    The performances in October Gale subvert genre expectations: Clarkson displays toughness and resolve without turning into Liam Neeson, and the distressed Speedman is as vulnerable as he is determined.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    My Name Is Emily
    My Name Is Emily gets lighter as it goes along, releasing tension and pretension for a pleasant, routine ride.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    East Side Sushi
    This lovely debut film contains all the ingredients of a culture-clash drama, which Lucero handles with a light touch.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    About Scout
    Weltz presents events through the sunny filter of Scout's resourceful optimism. Every obstacle is viewed as a creative challenge.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Free to Run
    The philosophical underpinnings of Swiss director Pierre Morath's well-paced documentary about the evolution of long-distance running evoke the motto of neighboring France: liberté, égalite, fraternité.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer
    Yudin's surface-level portrait looks for deeper truths, but finds them in unexpected ways.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Bonobos: Back to the Wild
    Tixier never strays far from a worshipful view of André and her sanctuary, but the film evolves into an interesting primer on the differences between life in captivity and the wild.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Sophie and the Rising Sun
    Greenwald and cinematographer Wolfgang Held linger on the idyllic beauty of the salt marsh and trees draped with Spanish moss, using the vivid cerulean of native blue crabs to link her characters.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Food Evolution
    Kennedy unabashedly admires scientists, and Food Evolution is his rallying cry to make advocacy as important as lab work.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Are We Not Cats
    Robin uses well-timed jolts and gross-out moments to awaken his solitary characters from their stupor, to shock them into acknowledging that their existence isn’t confined to the soul’s protective shell.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Two Step
    Extraordinary ordinariness is Two Step's saving grace.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    The Great Museum
    Holzhausen is respectful but not reverential, portraying the museum as a living thing that's being cared for with meticulous diligence.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Delusions of Guinevere
    Beneath the rom-com pacing and peppy underscoring of a Lifetime movie, Delusions of Guinevere is a surprisingly dark satire of modern celebrity.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Kelly & Cal
    Amy Lowe Starbin's script offers a welcome directness and some sly observations about acceptance and compromise.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Gurukulam
    In their equanimous portrait of an Indian religious community, Jillian Elizabeth and Neil Dalal contemplate enlightenment through an earthly source. They capture the quiet activity of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, an ashram in the lush hills of Tamil Nadu, with an observational documentary style that trades dispassionate distance for sympathetic immersion.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Reset
    Reset often seems like Demaizière and Teurlai's attempt to indoctrinate a new generation. Their glorious recruitment film espouses individual expression and athletic grace, while also pinpointing the limits of star power.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Can You Ever Forgive Me?
    No one does dissolute hubris with as much charm as Grant, and his ebullience is the perfect foil to the misanthropic McCarthy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Serena Donadoni
    Pin Cushion
    Pin Cushion has the visual cues of comedy, with its candy-colored kitsch and exaggerated signifiers of eccentricity and snobbery, but at heart, it’s a tragedy of naïveté.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 60 Serena Donadoni
    Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey
    Smitten with his characters, Sanders takes the elements of teen exploitation films and fashions a simple, placid return to innocence.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Serena Donadoni
    Lavender
    Gass-Donnelly (The Last Exorcism Part II) blends supernatural elements into a psychological thriller for a kind of spectral therapy, but his experimentation ultimately conforms to genre conventions.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Serena Donadoni
    The Boy Downstairs
    The writer-director’s first feature is warmly affectionate and maddeningly vague, with half-formed characters, limp plotting, and performances of captivating delicacy, especially from Zosia Mamet as a novelist guided by uncertainty.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 60 Serena Donadoni
    Marguerite & Julien
    The widescreen intimacy of small moments — the flush of a rain-soaked cheek — humanizes Donzelli's grand folly and the couple who challenge the parameters of morality.
prev
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »