She Hate Me
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: July 28, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
23
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
This intensely topical satire tackles a wide range of important issues, from corporate whistle-blowing to the toll sexual license takes on stable family structures. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A daring, entertaining, but somewhat disappointing affair, something of an overreacher despite Lee's usual pyrotechnics and a brilliant cast. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is exciting to watch this movie. It is never boring. Lee is like a juggler who starts out with balls and gradually adds baseball bats, top hats and chainsaws. It's not an intellectual experience, but an emotional one. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
She Hate Me is a mixed bag, but at least it's interesting and almost never boring. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
A messy -- but uproarious, timely and provocative -- farce. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
A belligerent little sex farce roiling inside an otherwise inconsequential lampoon of corporate America, the movie is rude and ridiculous, fearless up to a point, and breathtakingly hungry to provoke. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Lee's energy never flags, and She Hate Me resonates with authority and impact and daring, but the messages it sends are mixed. Read full review
50
VarietyScott Foundas
A scabrous, provocative and often funny social satire about the American dream, Spike Lee's flawed but fascinating She Hate Me addresses everything from corporate malfeasance to the African AIDS epidemic, barely catching its breath in-between. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
While not quite a red herring, the corporate stuff serves as a prelude to a long-winded and mostly embarrassing treatise on alternative lifestyles and filial responsibility. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
This 140-minute I-don't-know-what-it-is unravels like a ball of yarn after a bout with a tiger on Colombian catnip. Lee exhaust me. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Like most Lee films, She Hate Me is gasp-worthy, with something to offend everyone. I will not say that I liked it. I will say that like "Bamboozled," it exasperates and resonates. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's too much for a feature film, and too little, but it certainly isn't dull.
40
SalonCharles Taylor
The problem with She Hate Me is that there's no playfulness in Lee's provocations. He doesn't have the style or the naughty joie de vivre that you need to make a sex farce. Read full review
40
EmpireAngie Errigo
Undermined by a plot that doesn’t make sense and plays like three-and-a-half genre movies fighting for screentime in one overlong one. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
A mess, but it means well. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd Gonzalez
Most contracts are negotiated with John Hancocks, but in She Hate Me, deals are sealed with hot lesbian action. Spike, get a clue. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Director Lee throws cold water on his own overheated fantasy scenario by having Mackie mope through every scene. What's fascinating is how She Hate Me perversely trumps its own perversity. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
If it weren't all so cluelessly sleazy it might be funny. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyJon Strickland
Lee hits almost every note wrong, from Terence Blanchard's overplayed score, to underdeveloped roles for Ellen Barkin and John Turturro, to stale one-liners. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Spike Lee's fans have learned to take the bad with the good, but this is pretty damn bad. Read full review
30
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
It all turns out a bedraggled mess. Lee presumably had two ideas, one an exposé of pharmaceutical greed, the other a sex comedy: then he decided that neither one would make a film in itself and came up with the lame idea of combining them. What makes the resulting blunder even worse is that, intrinsically, almost every scene is directed well. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
When a Spike Lee film doesn't fly, it sinks like a stone. Read full review
25
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
It's hard to say what's most disappointing about She Hate Me, Spike Lee's absurdly - and arrogantly overlong comedic drama. But there are plenty of options to choose from. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerD. Parvaz
What is this movie about? Is it a morality tale? Is it about the complexity of romantic love? Parenthood? Accepting the often-blurred lines of our sexual orientation? Is it about the role of race in white-collar crime? What? Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
One of the most preposterous efforts by any major director in recent memory. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Lee remains a superb entertainer -- like Oliver Stone, he's incapable of ever being boring -- but in She Hate Me, he comes dangerously close to seeming trivial, a crank-for-crank's-sake. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
About as awful as a film can be without being the ultimate awful, which is boring. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
How can a director as savvy as Lee make so many errors of judgment regarding taste, tone, intention and dramatic structure? Read full review
20
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
The mélange of plots, subplots, reveries, gags, cartoons, dirty bits, and hissy fits points to a work that is structurally modelled less on the classic narratives of cinema than on, say, a portion of Russian salad. Read full review
20
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
Every once in a while, a film comes along that so blatantly disregards emotional authenticity that one fears for the sanity of its director. She Hate Me is just such a film, and Spike Lee is its director and co-writer. Artless, sensationalized, didactic and often downright silly. Read full review
20
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It's sheer agony to sit through, and not for the reasons Lee would relish. It's just bad. Read full review
20
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The most misguided, ill-conceived and lamentable film. Read full review
16
Portland OregonianKaren Karbo
Given the abundance of tedious sex in She Hate Me it's no wonder the whole thing's such a turn-off. Read full review
11
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The politest way to assess Spike Lee's latest polemic is to call it too ambitious. "An unholy mess" might come closer to the truth. Read full review
10
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Spike Lee carries his political exasperation beyond outrage into chaos. The carelessness with which he hurls his feelings about hot-button topics onto the screen is the filmmaking equivalent of last-ditch marketing: grab everything in sight, roll it up into a big messy mud ball, and hurl it against the wall, hoping that something sticks. Read full review
0
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Spike Lee’s She Hate Me is his worst movie ever--even worse than "Bamboozled," his self-serving indictment of modern minstrelsy, which at least was worth arguing about. Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
She Hate Me manages to be at once racist, homophobic, utterly fake, and unbearably tedious. This time, it's Spike Lee who's doing the bamboozling. Read full review
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