Teenage
Oscilloscope Laboratories | Release Date: March 14, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
IndieWire Gary M. KramerMar 13, 2014
This documentary is not a dry, academic history of youth culture, but rather a vibrant political statement that shows the powerful force of teenagers and their ability to foment social, cultural, and political change. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 11, 2014
Cry foul, you documentary purists, but narration by Jena Malone and others pulls the gamble off. The film makes its point ingeniously. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMar 11, 2014
The old footage — newsreels, scraps of home movies — is entrancing, and even those familiar details eventually accrete with the fresh ones into something grand and stirring, especially near the conclusion. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeJan 21, 2014
This is a whistle stop tour that leaves you wanting more. Read full review
80
Total Film Ali CatterallJan 21, 2014
A haunting, hypnotic collage of archive footage and period recreations charting the pre-history of the teenager. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoApr 24, 2014
The resulting film is a rich mix of movements and cultural phenomena that occurred not only in the United States, but several European countries. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianJeff BakerApr 3, 2014
There's a lot of ground to cover -- too much for a short documentary -- and Wolf goes past his boundaries for a quick, unnecessary glimpse of Sinatra, Vietnam, and some of what came after 1945. Read full review
70
The DissolveScott TobiasMar 11, 2014
Matt Wolf’s innovative documentary is a bracing reminder that the notion of adolescence as distinct from childhood and adulthood is a relatively modern phenomenon. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMar 26, 2014
Teenage is an art film – an engrossing one at that – so it isn’t required to respect Queensberry rules vis-à-vis documentaries. Read full review
67
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthMar 19, 2014
A clever assemblage of archival and historical material that unfortunately doesn't quite go far enough. Read full review
63
Washington PostJen ChaneyMay 22, 2014
Wolf — who wrote Teenage with Jon Savage, author of “Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture 1875-1945” — deftly weaves together various media in a way that breathes its own youthful, stream-of-conscious life into the documentary genre. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenMar 20, 2014
It can feel repetitive and oversimplified. Aesthetically, though, it has an aching, dreamlike pull, constructing a panoramic view of history through the prism of collective and personal memory. Read full review
60
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerMar 13, 2014
A lot of intriguing ideas are floated in Teenage... But the film takes a point of view that leaves all of them underdeveloped. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergMar 13, 2014
Like adolescence itself, Teenage is educational, scattered, and over much too quickly. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDiego SemereneMar 14, 2014
It botches itself out of its own epic ambitions, an aesthetic slickness that seems to contradict, if not betray, its subject matter, and a maddeningly subdued critical spirit. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 22, 2014
Regrettably, it’s terrible poetry: a roughly chronological jumble of archival footage, unconvincing period reenactments, gauzy voice-overs, and half-baked ideas that makes one yearn for the stolid dullness of a History Channel documentary. Read full review
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