8: The Mormon Proposition
Red Flag Releasing (RFR) | Release Date: June 18, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
As an exposé, there could hardly be a stronger case for ensuring and strengthening the separation of church and state -- or a stronger message to gay people as to the magnitude of the challenge to win equal rights. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Cowan, a gay Mormon himself, deftly melds facts with emotions, alternating between a history of the church's anti-gay drive and interviews with those directly affected by it. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
A hard-hitting exposé of a shameful episode. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter Debruge
For sympathetic outsiders, on the other hand, it covers a lot of ground in a short space, not always in the most organized way, but on enough fronts to spark an informed dialogue. Read full review
70
MovielineMichelle Orange
8 is most coherent as a chilling confirmation of both the mind-warping power of an institution like the Mormon Church and the extent to which politics is, above all, a marketing game. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
If the impact of co-director/writer Reed Cowan's film is undercut by its sometimes sloppy execution, it nonetheless provides a disturbing portrait of the increasing overlap between church and state. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Filmmaker Reed Cowan (himself gay and raised Mormon) documents the church's considerable financial influence on Prop 8's passage. Then he expands his sad and furious homegrown film to record the misery of gay Mormons sometimes driven to suicide over being rejected by their church and families. Read full review
65
NPRMark Jenkins
The movie poignantly demonstrates that, 41 years after Stonewall, there are still places in this country where gay people cannot simply be themselves. Read full review
50
Village VoiceErnest Hardy
The flaws pale against what's illustrated, which is not just how Prop. 8 passed, but the sordid, cynical workings of our political machine. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark Feeney
A deeply felt, and numbingly partisan, documentary about how the Mormon Church both bankrolled and masterminded passage of the initiative. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The highly emotional documentary is narrated by Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter for “Milk,” who, like Mr. Cowan, is gay and grew up in a Mormon household. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's marred by loaded language and a propagandistic tone that undercuts rather than promotes its purposes. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
There’s little of the Church’s perspective in this doc, but you can’t really fault the filmmakers--Mormon leaders refused several overtures to participate. Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/86550/the-mormon-proposition-film-review#ixzz0r2j38wUF Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A chaotic sequence midway through shows Mormon and gay-rights protesters shouting abuse at each other in San Francisco, and that's pretty much what the whole movie feels like. Read full review
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