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
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