Keyhole
Monterey Media | Release Date: April 6, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Total FilmCarmen GraySep 1, 2012
Though self-referential to a fault, the deadpan humour, frayed logic and monochrome dazzle cast their own richly peculiar spell. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMay 2, 2012
A movie like Keyhole plays like a fever dream using the elements of film noir but restlessly rearranging them in an attempt to force sense out of them. You have the elements lined up against the wall, and in some mercurial way, they slip free and attack you from behind. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 12, 2012
Like Maddin's melancholic and relatively more conventional "My Winnipeg," Keyhole is about a memory house, but one that is even more fragmented, mythical and elusive. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnApr 3, 2012
Keyhole never comes together, but that's part of Maddin's creed. He makes movies about movies to express his love for movies, which is to say he makes movies about himself. Read full review
70
NPRIan BuckwalterApr 6, 2012
Just as Ulysses illustrates the reflective nature of his journey by constantly turning back the hands of the house's clocks, each film of Maddin's is a reset button for the past. The director operates like a ghost himself, going back over his personal history and the history of cinema in an endless loop until he gets them right. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 5, 2012
To a die-hard Maddinite this may be a little disappointing, but for that reason Keyhole may also be a perfect gateway into the bizarre and fertile world of a unique film artist. Read full review
70
Village VoiceKarina LongworthApr 3, 2012
The film is infectiously somnambulant, so convincingly and unrelentingly dreamlike that its sudden end mimics the sensation of snapping awake from deep sleep. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayApr 4, 2012
Keyhole's flashes of actual B-movie coherence are enough to make longtime Maddin-watchers wonder if he could've played this material straighter, with more of a plot and fewer reveries. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickApr 6, 2012
I have to confess that this surreal departure by the iconoclastic filmmaker tried my patience more than a bit. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineBill WeberMar 29, 2012
A night of reckoning by a hoodlum in his haunted former home is a more sober and remote Freudian farrago than one expects from Guy Maddin. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichApr 3, 2012
For all the undeniable imaginativeness and visual dazzle (this is Maddin's first entirely digital feature, and it positively glistens), Keyhole ultimately comes off like a feature-length private joke that revels a bit too gleefully in its overall inscrutability. Close, Guy. But no Double Yahtzee. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangApr 1, 2012
Maddin's singular humor and fabulous black-and-white mise-en-scene can't sustain this fever dream beyond its initial fascination, making for an intriguing transitional work unlikely to broaden his audience. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 31, 2012
The first Guy Maddin movie that feels as if it got only halfway out of the director's head and onto the screen. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMay 26, 2012
I liked this movie somewhat, even if I'm not sure exactly what it means. Possibly it has something to do with arriving home, in the broadest sense. But in a Maddin film, uncertainty comes with the territory. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenApr 13, 2012
When Udo Kier is the sanest person around, you know you're in strangeville. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyApr 1, 2012
An exercise in opaque supernatural storytelling that's as frustrating as it is beguiling. Read full review
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