Photographic Memory
First Run Features | Release Date: October 12, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 12, 2012
Photographic Memory is about the permanence and impermanence of what we choose to preserve: on film and in our heads (which is often the same thing). I would like to think that one day Adrian might look at this documentary and see it as a supreme act of paternal love. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayOct 10, 2012
Photographic Memory is less wry and more melancholy than McElwee's earlier documentaries; it's a lot like his superb 2003 film "Bright Leaves," which was also concerned with family history and the shifting meaning of images. Read full review
88
New York PostLou LumenickOct 11, 2012
Utterly delightful. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierOct 8, 2012
Ross McElwee is less anxious of death itself than of finally comprehending the vast faultiness of the life he's lived. Read full review
80
Village VoiceNick SchagerOct 9, 2012
Alternating between time periods and geographic locations, all of it connected by McElwee's narrated thoughts, the film proves a bracing and sometimes uncomfortable peek into private fears and regrets about mortality and missed opportunities. It's also, in its portrait of wayward Adrian, further proof that there's nothing more difficult, frustrating, messy, and insufferable than teenagerdom. Read full review
80
Time OutMatt SingerOct 9, 2012
McElwee's quietly reassuring voice dominates the film, but that doesn't mean he can't craft a magnificently eloquent image when he wants to, as in the moment when he frames Adrian, seated in a coffee shop, inside his own reflection in the shop's front window. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckOct 16, 2012
The resulting journey of self-discovery is not exactly profound in its revelations, but as usual with McElwee's efforts the proceedings are enlivened by his droll, witty narration, delivered in a sonorous tone. Read full review
65
NPRIan BuckwalterOct 11, 2012
For all its obsession with the past, Photographic Memory ends in a simple, genuinely moving interaction between father and son that illustrates McElwee's discovery that memories are nice, but can't be touched and embraced as we can the present. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenOct 12, 2012
The connections made in Photographic Memory are more tentative than those found in Mr. McElwee's earlier films, which also seek answers in roundabout ways while maintaining an acute eye for light, color, space and atmosphere. Read full review
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