Child of God
| Release Date: August 1, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
7
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 31, 2014
What Mr. Franco does have is Mr. Haze, whose mesmerizing performance gives the movie its ballast and its fitful, nervous energy. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 17, 2013
Child of God is a shocking tale of backwoods lunacy and one man's descent into hell. Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is that it's really rather good. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 31, 2014
Franco’s hand-held camerawork draws the story forward as unfussily as a shepherd leads a sheep, and yet with a kind of ghastly grandeur. This is functional filmmaking more than it is flashy. But there is, at its heart, a single virtuosic performance. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 31, 2014
This is ambitious, challenging filmmaking, elevated by Franco's compassion and Haze's revelatory acting. OK, the film trips up on its attempt to lace tragedy with gallows humor. But Franco is out there trying something, balancing literature and cinema in a tightrope act that is never less than exciting to watch. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 1, 2014
James Franco’s adaptation of the sick little Cormac McCarthy period novel Child of God is surprisingly pretty good. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangSep 17, 2013
The crazed intensity of Franco’s filmmaking, while duly evocative of Haze’s primitive state, is ultimately too hectic and unmodulated for anything to burrow deep and stay there. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 17, 2013
Dramatically, Child of God is hit or miss; some scenes are ferociously captivating while others are given clumsy handling, almost to the point of indifference. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comScout TafoyaAug 1, 2014
Which isn’t to say the film is without merit. It is utterly fascinating to see classic literature re-enacted as if it were theatre, and it takes courage to grab up something as iconic in its darkness as Child of God and just play it straight. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundJul 27, 2014
James Franco's general aesthetic is ugly and ambling, not so much because of its brownish-gray monochrome, but because it registers like the jerky result of a college kid wielding a DV cam. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJul 30, 2014
As a McCarthy adaptation, it’s an abject failure; as a piece of art - damaged trash, it occasionally delivers the requisite squirms. Visually and thematically, it has less in common with "No Country For Old Men" or "The Counselor" than with ’90s shot-on-VHS gonzo efforts like "Red Spirit Lake." Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJul 31, 2014
It’s McCarthy’s complex use of language, rather than the plot’s grueling imagery, that elevate the book. There’s simply not enough insight here to make the punishment worthwhile. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid FearJul 29, 2014
It could have been so much worse; we wish it was a lot better. Read full review
30
Village VoiceSam WeisbergJul 29, 2014
As it stands, Child of God is brazenly, outstandingly bad, as vague, pretentious, and pointless as its sorry title. But it's certainly memorable, full of inadvertent howlers and destined to create a whole new subgenre of burlesque, audience-torturing cinema. Read full review
30
The DissolveMike D'AngeloJul 29, 2014
What’s left in the absence of McCarthy’s prose is a sincere but fundamentally pointless ode to a madman, which does little more than invite viewers to gawk at the unspeakable. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickJul 30, 2014
Child of God is, like the source novel, loosely inspired by the notorious real-life cannibal murderer Ed Gein. So was Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.’’ Nobody left that classic bored — but they sure will be by Franco’s film. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedJul 30, 2014
The prevailing mood of Child of God, published in 1973, is filth, alienation and inertia. You can have it. Read full review
25
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonSep 17, 2013
The whole thing feels sort of tossed off, like it was made by film students over a couple of weekends. Read full review
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