Reel Paradise
Wellspring Media | Release Date: August 17, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Since Reel Paradise doesn't make the mistake of lionizing Pierson while it keeps up with him and his family, the results stay with you, like memories of an unexpected and surprising vacation. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Reel Paradise is a deliberately untidy, open-ended, thoroughly absorbing chronicle that lets the lives of its characters spill across the screen without editorializing. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
True, the melodrama on display here can't compare to the likes of Larry, Moe, Curly, and the cannibals, but then this goofily charming quartet of Western outsiders is far more real than reel. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
While type-A Pierson worries about his projectionist showing up and a break-in at his family's home, his wife frets that the mass importation of American films will contaminate the local culture. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The Piersons went, they showed movies, they returned. Taveuni is more or less the same. But by living and coping together for a year, the family is probably stronger and richer. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
An engaging if overlong documentary. Read full review
70
Film ThreatJeremy Mathews
An honest look at the experience of a family who lives a yearlong tropical movie adventure on a remote island in Fiji. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
It's an engrossing and often very funny tale. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
"Survivor" meets "Cinema Paradiso"in this wonderfully entertaining documentary about a film fanatic's quest to bring Hollywood movies to a remote South Sea island. Read full review
70
SlateDavid Edelstein
Overlong at nearly two hours but still a sharp and amusing and subtle piece of filmmaking. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
There's something magical about seeing a packed house of 300 Taveuni locals laugh equally uproariously, and, without a nanosecond’s worth of culture shock, at Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down the House" and Buster Keaton in "Steamboat Bill, Jr." Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
The uproarious laughter that floats from the cinema wonderfully illustrates the universality of the moviegoing experience. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The film is absorbing enough as an intimate family portrait, complete with friction. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
A documentary that uses Pierson's self-congratulatory mission to explore a deeper story about cultural clashes and the complex dynamics of the modern American family. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
An amusingly damning portrait of a man trying to impose his will on a world that, really, has better things to do. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Although it will most readily appeal to cinephiles…offers sufficient reality-based incident and ponderable cultural issues to attract curious audiences. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
The Piersons are warm, funny people, and most of Reel Paradise shows them comically bickering with each other and laughing at the absurdity of the whole project. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The result is a gorgeous, third-person version of an extended family-vacation movie that the Piersons, their friends and their former Fijian neighbors can enjoy for years to come. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
Not sure we need to know this much about his family life. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyStaff (Not credited)
Pierson, with his carrot-thin frame, gogglish specs, and gnashingly quick temper, traipses around Taveuni like the king of the white-man geeks, alternately proclaiming the saintliness of his crusade and throwing tantrums whenever somebody else fails to sufficiently recognize it. Read full review
40
Village VoiceEd Halter
Unfortunately, what could have been a superficially amusing IFC reality series was stretched into a thin, overlong feature that follows the rocky integration of this very New York clan into a somewhat ruffled island society. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Pierson is a high-powered egotist with appalling tastes and a great-white-father complex, and his whiny family is about as much fun as fingernails on a blackboard. Read full review
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