He Named Me Malala
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 2, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 2, 2015
Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary is a forceful and exquisitely made piece of advocacy journalism. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 8, 2015
The most gratifying takeaway from He Named Me Malala is how ordinary Malala is shown to be, when she isn't lobbying the United Nations and visiting beleaguered countries. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 8, 2015
If there’s a quibble with the film, it’s that it glosses over what it’s like to grow up in the glare of worldwide celebrity. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinNov 2, 2015
A fittingly poignant treatment of an inspiring subject. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghOct 8, 2015
Though polished and image-conscious, offering too little insight into the physical and psychological trauma suffered in the bullet’s wake, the film is nevertheless moving without resorting to saccharine overtures. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRebecca KeeganOct 1, 2015
While the subject is deeply moving — and bringing tissues is recommended — Guggenheim's treatment is restrained, as he deploys inventive storytelling techniques that invite viewers inside Malala's world, to feel her joy, trauma and ultimately forgiveness. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 9, 2015
We may someday look back on He Named Me Malala as a film that told us much about a future world leader — or one that told us surprisingly little. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 8, 2015
A polished piece of advocacy filmmaking, He Named Me Malala begins - and is intercut with - beautiful animated sequences featuring Malala's 19th-century namesake, Malalai of Maiwand, an Afghani Pashtun poet who inspired her countrymen to rally against an onslaught of British troops. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoOct 8, 2015
He Named Me Malala gets good marks as a laudatory piece about a genuinely valiant young woman, but it could use a modest dose of objectivity. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 6, 2015
Using animation, interviews with Malala and her equally passionate father, Ziauddin, Guggenheim tells of the girl named for a famous female Afghan poetess/warrior, raised in the Swat Valley. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartSep 30, 2015
Animated sequences give life to various voice-overs, but are never as interesting as the young woman herself. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 16, 2015
He Named Me Malala retells that story in a deft and affecting way. Director Davis Guggenheim, who made the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth and the controversial Waiting for Superman, does some of his most heartfelt work in this tribute to Malala and her entire family. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 16, 2015
In the slim but powerful documentary He Named Me Malala Davis Guggenheim attempts to colour in a shy, yet deceptively stout-hearted schoolgirl and her symbiotically-close relationship with her father, indicated by the film’s title. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 8, 2015
Guggenheim's film makes it clear that she is funny. She is humble. And, beneath her extraordinary sense of purpose, she is an ordinary kid. Read full review
60
CineVueMatthew AndersonSep 16, 2015
Its flesh and heart lie in the private and personal moments. Read full review
60
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 16, 2015
Guggenheim largely dodges lodging her story within a greater political context; a choice, but a shame, for when he does, the movie gains tension. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangSep 16, 2015
Where the film falters is in its willingness to settle for canned uplift, reducing the substance of Malala’s global activism to multicultural montages, goosed by Thomas Newman’s emotional cattle prod of a score. Read full review
58
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 16, 2015
While it’s hard to indict the movie for wanting to admire and honor this extraordinary girl, the movie loses its own inherent potency with a haphazard structure that jumps around far too much in time and a monotonous narrative about Malala overcoming oppressors to bravely speak out and inspire the world. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireOct 2, 2015
While we do indeed see the normalcy of her home life with her parents and younger brothers and the regular, teenage-girl instincts that exist alongside her courage, we never get a glimpse into her deeper feelings. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerOct 1, 2015
It only occasionally delivers the kind of unguarded moment that makes you feel as if you’re getting beneath the media image, and it is not at all interested in discussing broader issues raised by Ms. Yousafzai’s fame. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 30, 2015
A puff piece for someone who doesn’t need one, Malala wraps Yousafzai’s life in media-circuit testimonials and fairy-tale-like animated sequences that stop just short of drawing an aureola of fire around her. Read full review
45
TheWrapInkoo KangOct 1, 2015
Grace and poise are certainly embedded in Yousafzai’s DNA, but there’s frustratingly little of her vulnerability or interiority in the film. Read full review
42
IndieWireGary M. KramerSep 16, 2015
It's a shame that Guggenheim's slickly produced documentary examines such an important and fascinating story with such underwhelming results. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid EhrlichOct 8, 2015
The frustratingly artless He Named Me Malala is but the latest of Guggenheim’s paeans to the global need for education Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 7, 2015
Don’t come to this documentary expecting to learn more about the girl named Malala. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaSep 27, 2015
The effect of the film's animated sequences is to distance the viewer from real-life horrors--another misguided attempt at turning recent history into instant myth. Read full review
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