The Better Angels
| Release Date: November 7, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeNov 7, 2014
Apart from the heavy debt it owes to Malick’s oeuvre, Edwards’ entrancing debut is radically non-generic, either as history film and coming-of-age piece. Read full review
80
The DissolveNoel MurrayNov 3, 2014
Do the undeniably Malick-derived qualities of The Better Angels work against it, or is the film all the more special for being, essentially, a bonus Malick picture? To be fair to Edwards, a lot about The Better Angels sets it apart from Malick. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 6, 2015
It’s a bit too spare and Malik-like for its own good. But the incessant voice-over, another Malick trademark, here makes the whole enterprise feel overheard, a story constructed from memory where the words are just ways of underlining what we would come to know about Lincoln the man based on Lincoln the boy. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerNov 13, 2014
Sandburg’s "The Prairie Years" is a source behind The Better Angels, a gorgeous look at the raw, wooded Indiana of the early 1800s and a dreamy study of the boy Lincoln who was destined to leave it behind. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyNov 7, 2014
To tell you the truth, The Better Angels, as pictorially beautiful and emotionally evocative as it is, is so bereft of conventional narrative momentum that you have to consider it a miracle it got made. Read full review
75
HitfixGuy LodgeNov 7, 2014
A lushly conceived, exhaustively realized debut feature that'd be pretty formidable stuff coming from a more practised filmmaker -- and derided in some quarters as a self-impressed knock-off. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 7, 2014
The film succeeds in that it provides a more vivid sense of this sort of 19th century childhood -- and Lincoln’s youth in particular -- than most people would have had before. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryNov 13, 2014
A movie that’s visually stunning and often poetic, but also leaves too much unsaid. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNov 6, 2014
If you succumb to The Better Angels, the effect is like falling into a gorgeous photograph, but that also means the narrative in this arthouse film is oblique and sketchy. Read full review
60
TheWrapJames RocchiNov 5, 2014
Mr. Edwards has given his film a strong narrative spine — depicting years in the life of young Abraham Lincoln as his family suffers and strives to succeed in Indiana — with such committed actors bringing life to the tale that the audience can't help but be engaged even as the staid, stark visuals keep viewers at arm's length. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 6, 2014
As an impression of a Terrence Malick film, The Better Angels is technically faultless, unimprovable. All that’s missing is the soul. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 21, 2014
Directed by Terrence Malick's editor and protégé, A.J. Edwards, The Better Angels abounds with Malick-ian moments: upward-pointing cameras capturing bodies wheeling through fields, plaintive voice-overs punctuated by Jew's harp and birdsong, a tendency to drift toward the sky and its moody tableau of clouds. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 20, 2014
The only problem with The Better Angels is that it’s not nimble enough to vary its strategy or to find ways for the character of young Abe (Braydon Denney) to grow over the course of the movie. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramNov 13, 2014
If the stream-of-consciousness, imagery-trumps-everything films of Terrence Malick tend to try your patience, this beautifully, beatifically boring imitation by a Malick protégé might be more than the better angels of your nature can endure. Read full review
50
Boston GlobePeter KeoughNov 13, 2014
Humorless, pretentious black-and-white tone poem about a very young Abe Lincoln. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenNov 6, 2014
In the absence of a more conventional storytelling approach, this series of brief, fragmented glimpses of the harsh challenges that shaped Lincoln's early life never allows you to get sufficiently close to its celebrated subject. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithNov 5, 2014
Rendering the life of young Abraham Lincoln as a tone poem, The Better Angels sags under the weight of its own resolute earnestness. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyJeff LabrecqueNov 24, 2014
It feels more like a poem. Or, at times, a symphony. But it's much less effective as an actual movie. Read full review
40
The GuardianJordan HoffmanNov 7, 2014
There’s slow cinema and there is boring cinema, and this is an unfortunate example of the latter. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 6, 2014
The sense of predestination hangs heavily over the movie, but not a sense of life. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 5, 2014
The main flaw — twirling farm girls and grunting oxen aside — is an utter lack of insight into the future leader’s character. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJames LattimerOct 28, 2014
Even taking into consideration the fact the A.J. Edwards edited To the Wonder, it's hard to recall a film so immensely and reductively in thrall to the work of another director. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAbby GarnettNov 4, 2014
Kruger and Clarke do their best to look steadfast with a camera swooping around them like a wounded bird, but there's no rescuing this imprecise family portrait from its own impulses toward obscurity. Read full review
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