Monrovia, Indiana
Zipporah Films | Release Date: October 26, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
L.A. WeeklyAlan ScherstuhlNov 1, 2018
Wiseman doesn’t engage with immigration or migrant labor in his town portrait, which helps make Monrovia, Indiana a stubborn entry into his canon. Many of his subjects are invested in the continuity of what they perceive as a timeless American normalcy, but they’re too polite — and cagey — to say what that means on camera. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyOct 26, 2018
Wiseman himself is also the last person who’d call his films “objective,” because they’re not. It’s more that their point of view is multi-faceted, sophisticated, connoting a point of view that’s deeply felt but not on-the-nose obvious. Read full review
100
Film Journal InternationalDaniel EaganOct 25, 2018
If there is any "message" to Monrovia, Indiana, it may be that we all share the same fate. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 8, 2018
As always with Frederick Wiseman, it’s the quotidian gestures that haunt one in Monrovia, Indiana. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 1, 2018
While there’s no reason to suppose that this is Wiseman’s last movie, it doesn’t seem impossible that, at 88, he is aware of lengthening shadows and autumnal tints, of the fragility of perception and the finite nature of consciousness. Monrovia, Indiana is not precisely about any of those things, but it carries intimations of them, elegiac strains amid the doggerel of daily life. Read full review
90
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 11, 2018
In its austere way, this is classic Wiseman, a film that takes us into the heart of a community and reveals its inner workings, comforts, fractures and traumas. It’s also a fine example of the way the director sculpts and moulds his material to create an arc that is both dramatic and poetic. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 7, 2018
The result is a classic on a par with “Winesburg, Ohio” and “Our Town,” a narrow slice of contemporary American life that manages to be both admiring, yet capable of polite skepticism. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 23, 2018
Few filmmakers can turn a mundane town council meeting about a library bench into a meditation on patriotism and civic responsibility the way Wiseman can. Let’s hope his camera continues to roll for years to come. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 11, 2018
Wiseman is well known for his objectivity but another of his most enduring traits has been a dedication to showing audiences the hard, under-appreciated work that is constantly being done by small social organizations and local councils. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 11, 2018
More impressionistic than the searing intellectualism of his last work, Monrovia, Indiana at once demonstrates Wiseman’s formidable cinematic capabilities while posing a number of tantalizing questions about the community at its center. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 25, 2018
In the realm of documentary films, as in the news media, polemicists are ascendant, but Frederick Wiseman isn’t one of them. For the past half-century, since his first film, “Titicut Follies,” he’s been an observationist. Not an observer, which carries a passive connotation, but a filmmaker who’s made a distinguished career of observing in a particular way — closely, calmly, shrewdly and systematically, with an eye to the institutions and social structures that shape and reveal people’s lives. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 25, 2018
At two-and-a-half hours, Monrovia, Indiana often feels static and low-key to a fault. As always, Wiseman is working hard at being fair, refusing to condemn or even condescend to what his camera sees. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisNov 7, 2018
Unmistakable political overtones populate the documentary Monrovia, Indiana, an examination of day-to-day life in a small, red-state town. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 1, 2018
The result is surprisingly companionable and enjoyable, an unhurried look at a location that is in no kind of rush, a place that is concerned most of all with preserving the way it’s always been. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 11, 2018
The film has its resonant moments, notably a wedding and a funeral. But it is by no means the jewel in the crown of a series that most recently has included electrifying docs like At Berkeley, In Jackson Heights and Ex Libris: The New York Public Library. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 11, 2018
Its methodical gathering of material never quite brings us to a more stirring understanding of the lives under its lens. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloOct 23, 2018
Much of what Wiseman captures here is so resolutely ordinary that it threatens to cross the line into outright dull. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesNov 15, 2018
What I learned from Monrovia, Indiana is that I – personally – am bored by mattress shopping, City Council arguments over fire hydrants, and high school band concerts I am not obligated by shared DNA to attend. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 25, 2018
Wiseman has filmed and under-edited what amounts to a public record of a sliver of a village captured at one moment in time, playing up the boredom, celebrating the pace of life yet never noting its problems or discovering its charms. Read full review
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