A Field in England
Drafthouse Films | Release Date: February 7, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJul 5, 2013
Wheatley’s extraordinary film shakes you back and forth with a rare ferocity, but the net result is stillness. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 6, 2014
On a more fundamental level this hilarious, disgusting, brilliant and circular psychotronic odyssey is a blast from the submerged past. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlFeb 4, 2014
It's sweaty, disorienting, thrilling. Rarely has a narrative feature so marvelously integrated a sequence of experimental filmmaking, and that sequence alone guarantees A Field in England should thrive on the midnight circuit. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovFeb 5, 2014
In many ways, A Field in England is a funhouse mirror of audience expectations and something of a filmic Rorschach test. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 8, 2013
The film is the most formally experimental, and probably the least approachable, of the director's titles to date. But it's further proof of Wheatley's singular sensibilities as a filmmaker. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonFeb 2, 2014
A Field in England is a rich, strange, hauntingly intense work from a highly original writer-director team. Read full review
80
Total FilmPhilip KempJul 8, 2013
Ben Wheatley’s strangest movie yet: mysticism, mystification and magic mushrooms in a English Civil War setting. Often confusing, occasionally infuriating – but audaciously original. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanJul 8, 2013
Very physical, with intense performances and half-serious period talk, it’s an impressive, haunting picture — though the sort of thing you have to meet at least halfway to enjoy. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonJul 8, 2013
This is a film built on sensation, misdirection and randomness. The result can be maddeningly obtuse, but it’s also breathtakingly lovely and genuinely unsettling. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 5, 2013
Wheatley's new film is grisly and visceral, an occult, monochrome-psychedelic breakdown taking place somewhere in the West Country during the civil war. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 13, 2014
Over all, A Field in England aims to confound. The filth-encrusted characters aren’t easy to keep apart, and the narrative is too fragmentary and freakish to grasp (the sun turns black, a character vomits rune stones). Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDavid Lee DallasFeb 3, 2014
Ben Wheatley's film is a reckless combination of period piece, war drama, broad comedy, psychedelic fever dream, and occult horror-scape. Read full review
63
Film.comWilliam GossFeb 11, 2014
I’ve given A Field in England two tries now and each time found it to be occasionally ferocious and funny, severely trippy for stretches and at times outright tedious. With that said, I still can’t wait to see what the man does next. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAndy WebsterFeb 6, 2014
The actors are uniformly impressive, and Mr. Wheatley’s longtime cinematographer, Laurie Rose, shooting in black and white, combines stunning pastoral compositions with bursts of graphic violence punctuated by blazing flintlocks. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesInkoo KangFeb 6, 2014
The happenstance plotting and over-reliance on violence as a plot motor dissipate the film's energy by the end. Read full review
60
The DissolveMatt SingerFeb 6, 2014
Even though the film’s overall impact is blunted by Wheatley’s frequently inscrutable plotting (co-written with Amy Jump), Rose’s images...speak louder than words. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 2, 2014
Clearly, Wheatley is bored with the paint-by-numbers approach of his horror contemporaries, but has swung so far in the opposite direction here, the result feels almost amateurishly avant garde at times, guilty of the sort of indulgences one barely tolerates in student films. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloFeb 5, 2014
It’s the period itself that’s front and center here — not in the usual sense of historical accuracy, but as a sort of theater of the bizarre that allows Wheatley and his wife, screenwriter Amy Jump, to indulge in dementia. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 20, 2014
What he ends up with is a film that boasts undeniably intriguing parts, but that -- unless you've just eaten some magic mushrooms of your own -- just doesn't gel as a whole, unified moviegoing experience. Read full review
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