Manderlay
IFC Films | Release Date: January 27, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
6
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Unstintingly raw and cynical, this disconcerting and deeply affecting State Of The Union treatise regularly comes dangerously close to caricature. Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Anybody can make a movie that's anti-slavery. But to make a movie that's explicitly anti-democracy-that's something. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I wouldn't go so far as to claim Manderlay is fun to watch. Von Trier, who can made compulsively watchable films ("Breaking the Waves"), has found a style that will alienate most audiences. Maybe it's necessary. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The acting has the bravura stage eloquence of Broadway Shakespeare and the movie is narrated, beautifully, by John Hurt. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
One of the best things about real Americans is that we can stand criticism. Informed or idiotic, scholarly or superficial, it's all welcome. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Lars von Trier is back, so to speak--he's never visited the States, which makes his snide anti-American allegories even more infuriating to some….But the story holds up well enough to deliver a pointed critique of establishing self-rule at gunpoint. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
To warm to Manderlay, the chilly second installment of Lars von Trier's not-yet-finished three-part Brechtian allegory examining United States history, you must be willing to tolerate the derision and moral arrogance of a snide European intellectual thumbing his nose at American barbarism. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
To state the obvious, Manderlay is often patently offensive in its racial politics, and it surely isn't for everyone. It is, however, very funny, very dark and very skillfully played. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
It's true, of course, that Trier still hasn't set foot on U.S. soil, but it may be that he sees us, in all our virtue and victimhood, that much more clearly for it. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
It's an extremely cynical perspective, enforced by some disappointingly turgid melodrama, but keep in mind, this movie was made before an almost uniformly poor and black population was left to rot in New Orleans floodwaters. Even at his worst, von Trier can still strike a nerve. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's so ruthlessly witty and meticulously plotted -- unexpectedly so, given its messy dramatic sprawl -- that it delivers a satisfying kick. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
A misfire, but a misfire from von Trier is still more interesting than a blandly successful Hollywood product. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Howard struggles with the role Kidman nailed. And the graphic nude scene in which "proudy slave" Timothy (Isaach De Bankole) puts a towel over Grace's head before ravishing her pale body is as rugged on the audience as it is on the actors. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Spike Lee has been treading similar terrain with both greater cogency and fewer similarities to Bertolt Brecht. Manderlay, though, is mad and perplexed in its own inscrutable, schematic way. The trouble is the angrier it gets, the more infuriatingly banal it becomes. Read full review
60
Film ThreatMichael Ferraro
If you hated "Dogville" because of the overage of narration or the length of time it took to finally get to a point, you'll be pleased to know that von Trier has lessened both those elements. With that said, it still has some of the same flaws. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
The film's conceits grow thin and von Trier's mocking, hectoring tone tiresome. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Nothing von Trier presents here, whether real or imagined, is fresh or new. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The subject being race relations, Manderlay is bound to stir considerable debate in intellectual circles, but given the director's abstract style and use of characters to enact an agenda, it's a discussion that will exclude the general public, who will ignore it as they did "Dogville." Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
In truth, von Trier is not so much a filmmaker as a misanthropic mesmerist, who uses movies to bend the viewer to his humorless will. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJosh Kun
Trier gets lost in his own rhetoric, forgetting to entertain his flock while raking them over the coals. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Plagued by moralizing so strident and a style so artificial that the story never has a chance to speak to an audience. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
All of this plays out as flat, didactic, and lazy. Read full review
30
SlateDana Stevens
Perhaps the saddest thing about Manderlay is how poorly von Trier treats his actors, who are so bludgeoned by the concept and the format they can scarcely breathe. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
No matter where he (Von Trier) begins, his dramatic compass drifts toward the same pole: the sexual humiliation of his heroine (How could Daddy let you do this, Bryce?). But it's hard to get too worked up over racial injustice when a director has the temperament of a Klansman. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
Another ridiculous anti-American screed by the minimalist Danish director Lars von Trier, who has never set foot in this country. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The film is obvious, weak and scattered and seems more like a practical joke than a work of genuine passion. It is without exaggeration one of the most blindingly boring films I've seen in years. Read full review
20
Washington PostPhilip Kennicott
Even the basic look of the film -- it was filmed on a stage with every shot set against a bleak, dark backdrop -- underscores the filmmaker's position as master manipulator, in a laboratory, looking down at his mice running through his maze. Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Manderlay is turgid and hollow. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Hate is too strong an emotion to spend on such a clumsy, bloodless broadside against human foibles in general and American follies in particular.
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