An Elephant Sitting Still
Kimstim Films | Release Date: March 8, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerRichard BrodyMay 7, 2019
Its mighty ambition and mighty power are suggested by its unusual length (it runs nearly four hours) and its distinctive, original style and tone. Yet it’s rooted in a familiar kind of story, a tale of the sort that lesser filmmakers could easily dramatize in familiar ways but which Hu expanded into a vision of life. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJonathan ChristianMar 22, 2019
As a simultaneous introduction and farewell, An Elephant Sitting Still might be one of the best movies that you will only watch once, but won’t ever completely leave your mind. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMar 22, 2019
One of the reasons An Elephant Sitting Still is so absorbing is that it has the advantage of duration, a willingness to linger in moments of silence and stillness. Paradoxically, as a result, it moves far more swiftly than you might expect. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Simran HansFeb 20, 2019
At times, it feels as though we’re watching something we’re not supposed to be seeing, such is the detail of the emotional degradation on show; in this sense, it’s impossible not to read it as something of a nihilistic suicide note. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 8, 2019
Hard to sit through and impossible to forget, this torpid four-hour anti-drama is suffused with the sort of hopelessness that cinema only sees every once in a long while . Read full review
91
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuFeb 20, 2019
Unmissable for anyone craving the gritty realism and independent spirit of pre-00’s Chinese cinema. Fair warning: this is decidedly not the feel-good movie of the year. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 6, 2019
Unsparing as Hu’s anatomy of moral drift may be, there is something graceful in his sympathetic attention to lives defined almost entirely by disappointment and diminished hope. Unlike the titular elephant, the film never stops moving, and by the end, instead of feeling beaten down, the viewer is likely to feel moved as well. Read full review
90
Screen DailySarah WardFeb 20, 2019
Unrelenting as its tone may be, the feature proves a delicately layered, deftly shot work that makes an incisive statement about the prevalence of apathy, arrogance and egotism in contemporary China and beyond. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comJustine SmithMar 8, 2019
Yet, love and beauty remain a constant source of minute, if not fleeting, pleasure. It is not a cure-all in the way it would be in a Disney princess fantasy, but it is enough to sustain existence in spite of its high risk and low reward ratio. Read full review
80
Film ThreatFilipe FreitasApr 1, 2019
Economic struggle, crime, intimidation in a variety of forms, and, above all, the lack of affection and joie de vivre, are factors strongly influencing the course of the story. Hu Bo, who could have been a true artist of the cinema, put his spellbinding camerawork at the service of a brutal social exposition with plenty of anger and frustration. The effect is intimidating but very real. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterClarence TsuiFeb 20, 2019
Admittedly, Elephant is a heavy affair, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Hu's characters remain very real, and they are never shown as indulgent to the point of being above the banalities of everyday life. Barbed humor abounds, too, in matter-of-fact dialogue. Read full review
80
CineVuePatrick GambleFeb 20, 2019
Powerfully conveying a longing for escape from ordinary life, Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still is a strangely alluring, four-hour portrait of the disillusionment and hollow sense of emptiness experienced by those living in a society marked by violent individualism. Read full review
80
The GuardianPhil HoadFeb 20, 2019
Hu provides no easy resolutions, and evidently found none himself. This epic of futility will have to stand as an epitaph for an extremely promising career cut short. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMar 3, 2019
The film’s gritty, mundane agonies come to feel like a series of moral tests with genuinely unpredictable outcomes. Read full review
60
Time OutHanna FlintFeb 20, 2019
Through tracking shots, close-ups and minimal dialogue director Hu Bo paints a bleak portrait of China, bolstered by a lead cast delivering understated and nuanced performances. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMar 5, 2019
Still, the respectful thing to do, it seems, is to treat An Elephant Sitting Still like any other film, imagining how it would look were Hu already hard at work on his next project. A lot depends on just how much sustained misery one likes to endure. Read full review
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