Petrov's Flu
Strand Releasing | Release Date: September 23, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennySep 23, 2022
All of it staged and shot with conscientiousness and ingenuity rarely seen in films from any country anymore. It is indeed a phantasmagoria, and perhaps an overload. Read full review
100
CineVueChristopher MachellFeb 11, 2022
Petrov’s Flu finds its meaning through sensation, memory and aesthetics, depicting social and political decay in its purest form stripped of the comforting scaffolding of linear narrative. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 17, 2021
Petrov’s Flu is fascinating partly because of the chunky muscularity – the inherent masculine brawniness – of Serebrennikov’s filmmaking, in which dreams are as solid and hard-edged as reality, and reality is a blockish, jostling thing. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 22, 2022
Despite the grimness, the violence and the grotesque bleating of some hateful, prejudiced trolls, the movie never drags you down (though it might exhaust you) because it’s buoyed by Serebrennikov’s bravura, unfettered filmmaking. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 19, 2021
While Serebrennikov may be banned from leaving Russia, his imagination, as well as his cast and crew, have been left gratifyingly free to roam: In its form-bending construction and surreal imagery, Petrov’s Flu plays like the work of an artist thrillingly unbound. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeJul 17, 2021
Through its heady stew of impulses and influences, however, Petrov’s Flu is cinema to the breathless last, riding the camera like a bucking horse as single shots carry us between locations, eras and states of mind — the thrilling, messy work of a man released. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineWilliam RepassSep 20, 2022
Kirill Serebrennikov’s blackly comedic fantasia paints a none-too-rosy picture of Russia, or its Soviet past festering just beneath the surface. Read full review
83
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganSep 26, 2022
Serebrennikov creates a compelling labyrinth of a story, composed of delusions, memories, projections, fantasies and banal real-life occurrences—all seamlessly blending and blurring together with exquisite precision. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorJul 17, 2021
Playing out at breakneck speed, it is awash with flights of fancy: outbursts of sex and violence; aliens and murder; sepia-dripped nostalgia; jarring temporal and spatial uncertainty; homoeroticism; etc. That sense of dizziness is only further confounded by Vlad Ogai’s shifting sets and richly detailed production design, and cinematographer Vladislav Opelyants’ long roving takes. Its cast has the sense of a troupe. The frame is always packed. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleOct 7, 2022
In its interlocking parts and willfully impenetrable details, Serebrennikov wants you to know that being Russian is too complicated to foreground one emotion or experience, or to rely on the safety of the linear when one day can feel like nothing and everything. This brazenly packed movie isn’t for everyone. Neither, we grasp, is being Russian. Read full review
80
Time OutDave CalhounSep 23, 2022
This is some flu: it plunges us into a deeply strange and unsettling version of reality. It’s undeniably confusing, but it leaves you with a powerful, if imprecise, feeling of a society that’s sick from something far worse than a passing virus. Read full review
80
Little White LiesMark AschFeb 12, 2022
This is breathtaking filmmaking, but would be a little hard to take for two-and-a-half hours. Thankfully, Serebrennikov has more tricks up his sleeve. Read full review
78
TheWrapBen CrollJul 17, 2021
Make no mistake, Petrov’s Flu is a formidable piece of filmmaking; it is also an exercise in style that uses its own virtuoso technique as a blunt-force tool against the audience. Read full review
70
Screen DailyDemetrios MatheouSep 23, 2022
At its best, it’s signature Serebrennikov: ambitious, eccentrically amusing, visually flamboyant. But the film’s radical potential is ultimately diluted by its freewheeling nature. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinJul 17, 2021
This hallucinatory, deeply confusing but skillfully executed and mesmeric work flows back and forth across time periods, parts of the city of Yekaterinburg and its characters’ memories, often literally within the space of a single shot. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerFeb 14, 2022
By turns impressive and oppressive, Petrov’s Flu combines technical razzle-dazzle with obtuse storytelling. Bravura and baffling in equal measure. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 13, 2022
It’s possibly the most Russian thing ever created, and it’s most certainly not a soothing viewing experience. But there’s something grimly fascinating about it nonetheless. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 17, 2021
No one could doubt the technical mastery of this movie and its formal audacity. But for all that, I found something unliberating in its mercurial restlessness. Read full review
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