Climax
A24 | Release Date: March 1, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
SlateInkoo KangMar 5, 2019
If you like postmodern gimmickry and modern dance, and are OK with sitting through nearly 10 minutes of staged talking-head interviews, glum stoner talk about abortion, nausea-inducing filmmaking, characters whose motivations don’t make sense, horror, exploitative child death, and a quasi-coercive lesbian make-out—but just don’t care to be reminded “Drugs! Are! Bad!”: Leave 89 minutes in. Or don’t come at all, because Climax really isn’t about anything more than that. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 28, 2019
What makes the extended trip-tastic finale ultimately disappointing is that it remains a resolutely exterior experience, a set of wild but recycled gestures that reminds you just how tedious watching someone else’s LSD high can be. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 28, 2019
Even though the techniques are immersive — plunging you into a disorienting reality that mirrors the drug-fueled frenzy you are witnessing — the effect is also curiously distancing. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 14, 2018
Climax works, at least when it’s willing to be a human drama. But then it sinks in that you’re watching “Fame” directed by the Marquis de Sade with a Steadicam. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 8, 2019
Alas, with the notable exception of the empathetic Boutella, the cast of “Climax” consists primarily of dancers who are not actors. And as actors, they’re really good dancers. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonMar 7, 2019
I wonder if Noe is familiar with the work of Three Dog Night, and their 1970 rumination on a party gone bad, “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Its lyrics apply here: “I’ve seen so many things I ain’t never seen before. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want to see no more.” Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 6, 2019
Climax is the first Noé film, though, to flirt with the novel sensation of boredom. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 27, 2019
It’s innovative and exhilarating at times, and then innovative and oppressive and relentless and repetitive and tiresome, but it’s never exactly boring. People will walk out of Climax, not for lack of interest, but for lack of endurance. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 27, 2019
Is it possible to be an enfant terrible when you’re 55? Unrepentant French provocateur Gaspar Noé pushes that question (and your buttons) to the breaking point with his latest transgressive import, Climax. Read full review
40
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsMar 20, 2019
Climax feels like what happens when a provocateur grows up. Noé, a nominally outré festival regular three decades into his career, is unmistakably washed. The jig is up, as of Climax, if not even earlier. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 27, 2019
In transgressive cinema, there is only one real sin, and that is to be boring. Somewhere around the six-hour mark of Gaspar Noé's 96-minute drug freakout fable Climax. Read full review
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