James White
The Film Arcade | Release Date: November 13, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TheWrapTricia OlszewskiNov 16, 2015
Abbott (“A Most Violent Year,” HBO’s “Girls”) is a revelation, creating a multidimensional character whose battling, sometimes uncontrollable emotions are clear in his warm and expressive eyes. Read full review
100
The New York TimesStephen HoldenNov 12, 2015
Its abrasive portrait of contemporary New York as a place of noise and nerve-rattling turmoil captures the mood of the city more accurately than any recent film I can think of. And the jagged camera work exacerbates the film’s jarring sense of immediacy. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoNov 12, 2015
James White is a masterful examination of how our behavior and the excuses we make about our lives fall away under certain, life-changing conditions. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 11, 2015
James White looks like a simple film on its surface.... But despite the vérité-influenced stylization, writer-director Mond (whose own struggle with loss likely inspired some of this story) doesn’t seem too interested in realism or grit. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayNov 11, 2015
So James White’s title character is an entitled, self-centered a--hole. But the movie about him is still a marvel: an honest, moving, and occasionally even funny portrait of what happens when a cripplingly immature young man gets hit with one reality check after another. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnJan 26, 2015
Despite the cerebral formalism that pushes it forward, Mond has made a genuine tearjerker. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinNov 19, 2015
Ultimately, though, it's Abbott's show to steal — and steal it he does — as he rivetingly conjures a character who's chaotically charismatic, hugely affecting and for better or worse thoroughly real. Read full review
90
NPRBob MondelloNov 16, 2015
James White is never more moving than when the filmmaker shows his callow hero doing the best he can: when James helps his mom weather a particularly rough patch, for instance, with what amount to real-life bedtime stories. Imagining happy scenes he's pretty sure she'll never see — of James all grown up. Read full review
90
TimeLisa SchwarzbaumNov 14, 2015
There is no solace to be had in this raw, intimate drama, a feature-film debut for writer-director Josh Mond. No triumph of the human spirit. There is instead something rarer and more valuable: urgently personal filmmaking, and Abbott’s stunning performance. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 26, 2015
Mond's skill at working with actors is equal to his fully developed visual style and assured modulation of atmosphere and tone. This may be a small movie, but it's an impressively rigorous one without an ounce of flab. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 3, 2015
James White gets up close and personal in often discomfiting ways, but it’s never exploitative or glib. It hits the highs, and the rock bottoms, and all the damnable stuff in between. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 13, 2015
Some movies are so good and true and tough-to-the-core they should just sneak up on you. James White is one of them. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 13, 2015
Cynthia Nixon commits wholly to her role’s maternal patience and scattered mental decay, but it’s Abbott who really dominates James White. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensNov 12, 2015
As an intimate chamber piece with pitch-dark subject matter, James White could only avoid bathos by featuring two actors at the top of their game, alive not only to the inner worlds of their own characters but to the shared world they both know they’re on the brink of losing. Read full review
80
The GuardianDamon WiseJan 26, 2015
When Abbot and Nixon start their sparring, Mond’s film takes on a magnificently physical and tactile quality. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasJan 26, 2015
Familiar in its general trajectory, but unusually raw and ragged in its emotional architecture, Mond’s fraught portrait of a mother and son in crisis sports a pair of knockout performances by Cynthia Nixon and “Girls” alumnus Christopher Abbott. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 3, 2015
An accomplished and compelling film by writer/director Josh Mond, James White is also pretty much a bummer. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 18, 2015
In the best scene, which comes late in the film, James holds his dying mother and shares a vision of their future that they both know she’ll never get to see. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoNov 11, 2015
It confronts the hard realities of a world in which few make it to maturity without their share of scars, and no one makes it out of adulthood alive. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJan 26, 2015
Mond’s film doesn’t feature traditional structure or many familiar character beats of self-improvement, but as a visceral, in-the-moment portrait of struggle and suffering, it’s a striking first film. Read full review
70
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekNov 10, 2015
When James White really digs in, it's an affecting portrait of grief and of feeling lost in life. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicSuzanne Condie LambertDec 17, 2015
The camerawork makes Mond's film lovely to look at. But whether you want to spend time with James White depends on your tolerance for yet another film about how hard it is for guys who just feel too much. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenDec 14, 2015
There’s such a thing as something being too personal. James White is that thing. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 3, 2015
As for the movie’s ultimate resolution, nothing specific can be said here, except that it borders on inexcusable. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithNov 13, 2015
An indie exercise in macho posturing disguised as a tale of grief, reminds us that losing one’s parents is psychically debilitating. But that’s about as useful as knowing that rain is wet. Read full review
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