Museum Hours
Cinema Guild | Release Date: June 28, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsNov 14, 2013
Observant with mannered edits, Jem Cohen’s modest story delivers a character sketch and a traveler’s essay. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 14, 2013
Some may find the film underpowered. Not me. With elegant understatement, Cohen creates a humane testament to reaching out, whatever our habits and routines. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleLeba HertzSep 19, 2013
Part travelogue, part narrative and part art-history class. The class is what's best about this pretty decent movie. Read full review
80
The GuardianMike McCahillSep 6, 2013
Like José Luis Guerín's brilliant 2007 curio "In the City of Sylvia," this is one of those rare films that may change the way you view the world. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTrevor JohnstonSep 4, 2013
Its encouragement to let ourselves be captivated by everyday humanity as well as the old masters is both richly illuminating and quirkily endearing. Time well spent. Read full review
80
Total FilmTom DawsonSep 2, 2013
Blurring documentary/fiction boundaries, writer/director Jem Cohen’s film is deceptively simple. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 15, 2013
Museum Hours is every bit as masterfully conceived and executed as the art works that serve as the film’s lively cast of supporting characters. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 15, 2013
It's a film whose pleasures are much more visual than dramatic, but that doesn't mean there aren't serious things on its mind. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 19, 2013
Museum Hours is an unusual film. It lacks a score yet feels like a sonata, intimate and musical. Secret harmonies are being heard. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJul 5, 2013
It’s a hybrid drama/art-history essay about how looking at art recasts our experience of looking at the world. Read full review
75
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeJun 28, 2013
The film shows how quiet exteriors can mask deep interior lives, and how art feeds those lives. The view of art is richly intellectual, sometimes enthralling. But I confess, I liked Museum Hours best for answering a question I’ve always had: What is that guard thinking? Read full review
70
NPRMark JenkinsJun 27, 2013
Those who don't savor Cohen's leisurely rhythms will probably not respond to Museum Hours, and even the movie's admirers will admit that it could be a little tighter. One scene that might be trimmed is the one where museum-goers pose, naked as the people on the canvases around them. The interlude certainly isn't dull, but it is a little brazen for a film that encourages its viewers to find the beauty in more commonplace sights. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 27, 2013
This movie is rigorously and intensely lifelike, which is to say that it’s also a strange and moving work of art. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 26, 2013
Essentially an essay film, Museum Hours is less interested in plot than in using its characters as a way to give ideas shape and voice; however, because their performances are natural and improvisatory, the movie never seems didactic. Read full review
100
Village VoiceCalum MarshJun 25, 2013
The film, a kind of hybrid between understated drama and essayistic tourism, approaches its subjects with uncommon patience and curiosity, lingering over objects and faces as if to savor their aesthetic qualities, eager to convey truths without authorial imposition. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearJun 25, 2013
The real strength of Cohen’s occasionally didactic drama, though, is in the way the film redirects your focus to the periphery and reminds you of the richness that resides there. It was an achievement Bruegel mastered early on. And it’s what makes Museum Hours its own work of art. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnJun 25, 2013
With a keen eye for the capacity of fine art to address a complex range of attitudes and experiences, Museum Hours effectively applies Cohen's existing strengths to a familiar scenario and rejuvenates it by delivering a powerfully contemplative look at the transformative ability of all art. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoJun 24, 2013
Jem Cohen's film finds its most salient tension in the fraught relationship between known and unknown objects. Read full review
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