Custody
Kino Lorber | Release Date: June 29, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 11, 2018
Custody can be difficult, even wrenching to watch, but it always plays fair with the audience, and the experience, worth every minute expended, is impossible to forget. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 12, 2018
As a demonstration of slighted masculinity being given an inch, taking a mile, and chewing it up with breakneck fury, the film could hardly be more timely or disconcerting. But it understands the ignition point of rage – not just its ugly momentum. Read full review
95
Film Journal InternationalDoris ToumarkineJun 28, 2018
Custody embodies Legrand’s attention to detail, reverence for gripping storytelling, command of tension and, above all, direction of finely etched performances for characters major and minor. It is simmering entertainment that amounts to required viewing. Read full review
91
The Film StageJared Mobarak
The intensity is too much to bear in the best possible way. Legrand knows exactly where to position his characters and what’s necessary to break them. It’s a steady crescendo of suspense despite his source of danger never shifting. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 2, 2018
If you are pressed for time this week, and can spare only fifteen minutes at the cinema, spend them at the opening of Custody. There’s a scene near the start that is like a mini-movie in itself, tense with foreboding — a tension that the rest of Xavier Legrand’s film does nothing to dispel. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 27, 2018
Mr. Legrand is skilled in the techniques of dread and suspense, and without sensationalizing or cheapening the story, he gives this closely observed drama the tension and urgency of a thriller. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala Halligan
An almost unbearably-tense, no-holds-barred drive through the nightmare of domestic terrorism, Custody is a can’t-look-away hybrid of gruelling reality and heightened cinematic technique. The mix is jarring, as intended, and this wrenching, heart-stopping film illustrates domestic violence and obsession in a way that makes the fear real. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter Debruge
Legrand’s achievement — his integrity, one might say — is that he’s managed to cut to the marrow of the situation while remaining keenly sensitive to how such things play out in the real world. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJun 29, 2018
Custody plays like a more humanistic Michael Haneke film. It’s emotionally bruising but not without some glimmer of hope, personified here by a close-up of the preternaturally kind face of a 911 dispatcher. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 20, 2018
What rescues the film from melodrama is that Legrand drew on extensive interviews with psychologists, emergency police personnel, female victims, and batterers. The bone-deep chill of real, observed experience cuts through this film and gives it a verity that at times reminded me of Frederick Wiseman’s harrowing documentary “Domestic Violence.” Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonApr 16, 2018
Knowingly blending realist grit with generic guile, this unrelentingly tense account of a fragmented family living in constant fear thoroughly merited the Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenApr 10, 2018
It’s unblinking in a Dardenne-ish way and often hard to watch, with the emotional toll playing on its characters’ faces. The ending is a floorer too. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn Bleasdale
With Custody, Legrand has created a family drama that plays out as social realism, but it is as intense as a thriller and, with no generic get outs, far more terrifying than Kubrick's The Shining. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 2, 2018
A peerless fusing of dumbshow performance and background sound editing, there's a rising panic that allows the final, violent closing act to seem shockingly organic. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJul 25, 2018
As for Drucker and Ménochet, they vividly embody the roles of abuser and victim but have little else to work with. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 3, 2018
If there’s an overbearing flaw to Custody, it is its lack of surprises. Read full review
75
IndieWireMichael NordineJun 30, 2018
Custody begins with an air of documentary reality before evolving into a thriller so claustrophobic its climax fits inside the bathroom of a modest apartment. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd
Custody doesn’t do much more than plunge the audience into this hellish situation, but it shrewdly understands the bad dad’s pathetic pathology, and the film may resonate for anyone who’s grown up under the unhealthy supervision of a mean bastard. Take that as a sobering recommendation. Read full review
70
Village VoiceDanny KingJun 27, 2018
Legrand demonstrates great skill as a tactician in this closing third, but his overarching framework for Custody — with its considerable reliance on is-he-or-isn’t-he uncertainty — demands that he sacrifice interior perspectives. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van Hoeij
Legrand's decision to leave things intentionally unclear early on so he can draw the audience into the family’s problems and consider them from various sides finally works against the third act’s cold hard facts. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJun 22, 2018
Custody is concerned with the failure of process to discern human need and perversion, and Xavier Legrand rather ironically follows in the footsteps of bureaucracy by reducing people to statistics. Read full review
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