Our Song

IFC Films | Release Date: May 23, 2001

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

77	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Connie Ogle

Anyone who understands the subtle shadings of friendship will appreciate Our Song's realistic slice of teen life.

100

Stephen Hunter

It's an astonishing movie, with a real-life feel. Read full review

John Petrakis

Has an assured air, rich with scenes of affection, anger and reconciliation, along with moments of unfeigned humor.

Roger Ebert

Has the courage to work without a net, aware that when you're a teenager, your life is not a story so much as a million possible stories. Read full review

Dana Stevens

So unlike most Hollywood coming-of-age stories as to seem downright revolutionary. Read full review

Desson Thomson

It's more a collection of episodes that build to a complex, richly layered picture of these girls' lives. And the more time we spend with them, the more endearing they become. Read full review

Lisa Alspector

One girl's melancholy (beautifully expressed by actress Kerry Washington) is a response to a fractured romance. Read full review

Film.comElizabeth Weitzman

The most faithful cinematic depiction of adolescence in recent memory.

Kenneth Turan

This modest film has virtues that come out of nowhere. It takes familiar material and develops it with such tact and skill that we find ourselves moved and sort of amazed at the same time. Read full review

Peter Rainer

iIsn't really much more than a funny, touching little squiggle, but it has a bracing honesty and pays particular heed to the betweenness in people's lives, to how much goes on when nothing seems to be going on at all. Read full review

Edward Guthmann

The movie's soul isn't its plot but the relationships among the girls. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineFrank Lovece

The movie sticks with you as few do: It's rewardingly authentic and emotionally real. Read full review

100

Owen Gleiberman

The movie draws us into the illusion that we're simply eavesdropping on the lives of three inner-city black and Hispanic girls. Read full review

Carrie Rickey

Heartbreaking? Sometimes. Involving? You bet. Read full review

Jonathan Foreman

A languid but refreshingly real depiction of female adolescence. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

It's too bad the language prevents this independent film from being rated PG-13 because this is the kind of movie that might be capable of realistically reflecting teens' lives to other teens. Read full review

Sean Axmaker

The three stars communicate the fears and dreams and frustrations of teenage girls with subtlety, sensitivity and dignity. Read full review

Jessica Winter

The patient camera leans in closely on the three lead actresses -- extraordinary first-timers all. Read full review

100

Michael Sragow

The movie's triumph is that we experience the ending, in which the three girls go mostly separate ways, not as a defeat but as a transition still open to possibilities.

Ernest Hardy

So gently told, so deceptively simple a story, that its considerable emotional power sneaks up on you. Read full review

Jami Bernard

That it all seems improvised on the spot (it was not) is testament to the power of a film that trusts its characters, its actors and its ultimate goal.

Joe Morgenstern

Directed with such a confident, delicate touch. Nothing is insisted on, yet whole lives are discovered and revealed in vignettes that seem as spontaneous as a laugh or a gasp.

Charles Taylor

One of those movies that you continue to pull for even after it becomes clear that it isn't very good. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Gregory Weinkauf

What's most impressive about this is that, if one didn't know better, the naturalism of the performances could be taken for that of a documentary.

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

Best of all is the supporting performance of The Jackie Robinson Steppers Marching Band, a real group of high-school musicians in which the three girls all perform.