Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words
Rialto Pictures | Release Date: November 13, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 11, 2015
A creature of impulse to the end, she was a woman who saved everything—from lace valentines and old passports to Oscars and tear-stained divorce papers. How lucky we are she can share them with us now. She marched to her own drummer, and the beat goes on. Read full review
91
The PlaylistNick SchagerSep 26, 2015
The use of the actress’ own archival material in 'In Her Own Words' results in a tribute to both her titanic career, and to her belief in the movies’ capacity to safeguard the past, and to maintain it long after its makers are gone. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonAug 8, 2016
It’s most fascinating when dealing with the fallout from her divorce from first husband Petter Lindstrom and very public affair with director Roberto Rosselini – a reminder of how much gossip, scandal and public opinion were at the heart of Hollywood long before Twitter. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerAug 3, 2016
An intimate, if unanalytical, portrait of one of movies greatest talents, told in her own words and through an adroitly assembled use of fantastic home movie footage. It’s also probably your only chance to see a Hollywood icon win a sack race. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 10, 2015
A surprisingly intimate film, a completely involving look inside the life of a gifted and complex woman. Read full review
80
Village VoiceSam WeisbergNov 19, 2015
[A] vivid and enlightening documentary. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 12, 2015
She is revealed in all her complexity by Mr. Björkman’s film, in which passages from his subject’s letters, notes and diaries are read by the fine young Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. “I don’t demand much,” the film quotes her as saying. “I just want everything.” She got a lot, and gave immeasurably more. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesJohn HartlFeb 14, 2016
Bjorkman emphasizes the connection between Ingrid’s private and public lives, most movingly in her last film for theaters, “Autumn Sonata,” in which she and Ullmann played mother and daughter. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 11, 2016
In its occasionally over-gentle way, the documentary testifies to the ego necessary to be a great star and to live a great life. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Nathalie AtkinsonJan 21, 2016
The screen, always Bergman’s supreme medium, is proof of the power of her magnetic and energetic presence. It shines through in even the grainiest, jumpy, out-of-focus home-movie footage. Read full review
75
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeNov 13, 2015
There isn’t a lot here about her films, or great performances, but this is two hours of Ingrid Bergman, much of it rarely seen before. I’m not about to complain. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianNov 9, 2015
It highlights the potent dichotomies that, combined with Bergman's relatively unmediated beauty, made the actress luminescent both on and off screen. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungNov 19, 2015
The portrait that emerges is intimate — perhaps too intimate for film lovers who might have preferred to hear more about the star’s working methods, and fewer details about her husbands and kids. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 12, 2015
Part of what makes In Her Own Words so pleasurable is that it’s so insistently celebratory, despite the traumas and hurts that trickle in. To that upbeat end, it tends to soften and even elide some of the thornier passages in Bergman’s life. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 19, 2015
As a family-approved document, In Her Own Words is celebratory rather than probing, critical or comprehensive. Read full review
60
CineVueMatthew AndersonAug 11, 2016
Respect and admiration for her work and carefree nature is in plentiful supply but this is not an exclusively glowing retrospective. Read full review
60
VarietyJay WeissbergNov 19, 2015
The lack of any significant investigation into performance styles is acutely felt, particularly given the very different methods of her major directors. Read full review
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