Computer Chess
Kino Lorber | Release Date: July 17, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
3
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The PlaylistGabe ToroJul 19, 2013
The endlessly surprising, often riotously funny Computer Chess basks in the details of a group of men who, at a key point in history, are asking themselves not only if they can accomplish something, but why, and what it means to their current generation. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoJul 11, 2013
A movie which sits at the nexus between spoken and written language, the latter mostly of the programming variety. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJul 16, 2013
What’s more, it’s fun, generating pleasure not from canned jokes or clichéd plot twists but simply from a sense of unhindered freedom. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnApr 22, 2013
Computer Chess excels at conveying the frustrations of feeling trapped by forces beyond one's control, the complexities of humanity irresolvable by any neat code. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirJul 18, 2013
There’s even a shadowy hanger-on (played by novelist and journalist Jim Lewis) who may be a drug dealer or a CIA-NSA-type spook or both. That’s just one of the many ways that this profound, peculiar work of genius, this half-comic portrait of the present in embryo within the past, reverberates with hidden meanings and a questing intelligence. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 16, 2013
Peculiar and sneakily brilliant. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAaron HillisJul 16, 2013
So far the funniest, headiest, most playfully eccentric American indie of the year, Bujalski's perceptive avant-garde comedy...teases out unanswered existential and behavioral questions about mankind's curious obsession with artificial intelligence and automation. Read full review
90
The DissolveScott TobiasJul 16, 2013
Computer Chess may seem like a novelty item, but it’s that and more, accumulating insight and substance without ever losing the fun of being a lark. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam NaymanJul 25, 2013
Shot on a vintage Portapak video camera that actually predates the movie’s early-eighties setting and painstakingly crafted to resemble an analog artifact from a bygone era, Computer Chess is, ironically, a comedy about technological innovation. Read full review
85
NPRElla TaylorJul 19, 2013
The beguiling Computer Chess is about the dawn — one of many, but that's another story — of the tech revolution. It's also a reminder that you don't need state-of-the-art toys to make a formally playful comedy about man versus machine. Read full review
80
Total FilmEmma SimmondsNov 21, 2013
A winning mix of deadpan comedy, retro stylings and escalating insanity. Too idiosyncratic for some perhaps, but this one-of-a-kind indie makes ’80s nostalgia feel new again. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonNov 19, 2013
Low key and occasionally frustrating it may be, but Computer Chess is a supremely intelligent, beautifully constructed film, interweaving comedy and character, satire and subtext, and loaded with more ideas than some filmmakers manage in a lifetime. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyAug 1, 2013
Director Andrew Bujalski makes a serious play for his own place in the pantheon of hysterically pretentious pretend. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichJul 16, 2013
What’s past is prescient, and what it all means is beside the point. Let’s just say Bujalski has made a prankishly out-of-time movie about that other AI: mankind. Read full review
80
The GuardianAndrew PulverApr 22, 2013
Bujalski really has pulled off something extraordinary here. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAug 21, 2013
It’s a query with no answers, a period piece about the present. It’s idiosyncratic, actively noncommercial, and doesn’t follow the rules – like playing a game of chess on a board with no squares. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 31, 2013
Computer Chess is deeply strange and occasionally impenetrable, yet it’s also surreally funny, with touches of science fiction that bedevil the proceedings with outré possibilities. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJul 25, 2013
At a certain point, Bujalski - the mumblecore meister, gleefully pushing the envelope of credulity here - jettisons the mock-doc pretense for a Christopher Guest-like glimpse into a strange subculture of the everyday. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 1, 2013
It’s clever. It’s also occasionally a chore to watch, true to the boredom you’d expect to feel listening to computer programmers hash out chess logistics. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsSep 26, 2013
A naturalist comic of inarticulate manners, writer-director Andrew Bujalski attempts the ensemble styles of Robert Altman and Christopher Guest to peer into a micro-culture in Computer Chess. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 8, 2013
Computer Chess makes an affecting preservationist plea, in this case for a visual and material culture that, while not objectively beautiful, possessed its own form of buttoned-down passion — before it became obsolete by taking over the world. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanJul 18, 2013
Better to stick with his slightly weird, ultra-focused nerds, who toil away on something strange and special, simply for the beauty of it. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangApr 22, 2013
Computer Chess is ultimately too slack and scattershot to work consistently well as a comedy. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comRoger EbertJul 18, 2013
As an achievement, Computer Chess is laudable. As a film, it's missable. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyApr 22, 2013
Basically the film consists of a bunch of techies in white shirts and glasses laboriously discussing their views, exchanges you get the feeling the filmmaker thought would come off as humorous. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithJul 18, 2013
Even for a mumblecore film, Computer Chess is weak stuff, a punitively dull chunk of quirk that is about, and feels like, being stuck in a motel with a gaggle of programming nerds for a weekend. Read full review
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