Test Pattern
Kino Lorber | Release Date: February 19, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterJourdain SearlesFeb 25, 2021
The film is a staggeringly impressive debut, blending color, sound and story to create an intricate emotional tapestry. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsFeb 24, 2021
Test Pattern, for its emphatically binary sense of the world as summed up in the differences between these two people, for its literal examinations of blackness and whiteness, and gender, and everything else, somehow avoids falling into the trap of painting the world in black and white. It is a film that — more than presenting the mess of the life — dives in headlong, wisely, cuttingly, and to devastating effect. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSelome HailuFeb 18, 2021
Ford’s commitment to implying trauma instead of visualizing it is more than just an impressive formal constraint. Test Pattern proves the fault of more uncreative depictions of racial and gendered violence that exploit bare bodies and blood for shock value rather than depth and specificity. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloFeb 19, 2021
Coupled with the talents of cinematographer Ludovica Isidori and music by Rob Rusli, Ford’s Test Pattern is an engrossing human drama, one that examines the intersections and inequalities between race, gender, and healthcare in a poignant and powerful way. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRobert DanielsMar 16, 2021
Michelle Ford’s Test Pattern, with patient specificity, probes the institutional injustices suffered by black women to potent, provoking effect. Read full review
83
The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.Feb 18, 2021
Taking the title into consideration, Test Pattern remains clearly focused on the circumstances outside of our control that force adjustments in perspective. Read full review
83
IndieWireKate ErblandFeb 18, 2021
Despite the density of their subject, Ford avoids heavy-handed platitudes and dramatic tropes, instead relying on a strong script and a pair of sneakily powerful performances from stars Brittany S. Hall and Will Brill. The result is a showcase for the film’s central trio, one that resonates long after the film’s slim running time concludes. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 23, 2021
An echo of an echo, a convergence of social-scientific cinema and stifled screams of pain that appears designed, urgently and precisely, to break the silence. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangFeb 18, 2021
Test Pattern — tiny, sedate yet urgent — is like the tinkling of a warning bell that somehow signals the five-alarm fire of ingrained racism, sexism and the faulty American medical and judicial systems, that rages just outside the door. Read full review
80
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Sarah-Tai BlackFeb 18, 2021
A deceptively simple and concise narrative structure allows Ford to parse her subject and characters with a graceful internal complexity that shows rather than tells. Read full review
80
The New York TimesDevika GirishFeb 18, 2021
Test Pattern achieves a lot with very little: The film’s nonlinear editing and cannily scored silences invite our interpretations, locating in them the entanglements of race and gender. Ford pushes us, if not to definitive answers, then to the right questions. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarFeb 17, 2021
A trenchant conversation piece from a promising new director, Test Pattern provides ample room for one’s biases and privilege to shape our interpretation of what’s on screen. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 22, 2021
If Test Pattern feels a bit unfinished by its end, it’s not because I wanted resolution—documenting the refusal of resolution seems to be the point—but because there seemed to still be more, especially between the main couple, to explore. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 16, 2021
Ford has made a downbeat, realistic treatment of this subject that doesn’t have a built-in call-to-arms as part of its make-up. That’s implied. Nobody, no couples, should have to go through this. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineWilliam RepassFeb 14, 2021
The film strikingly punctuates the detachment of realist drama with the expressionism of psychological horror. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneNina MetzFeb 17, 2021
There are colors that pop throughout film — as if, in a nod to the title, drawn from a TV test pattern — and visually this is what stayed with me, from the yellow of Renesha’s dress, to the aqua benches against the white antiseptic floors of the hospital waiting room Read full review
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