The Broken Tower
Focus World | Release Date: June 20, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
We Got This CoveredBlake DewApr 12, 2018
The Broken Tower is a wonderful labour of passion and love for this incredible artist and his broken life and it could not have been a more perfect way to encapsulate the incredibly obscure and fantastic artist that is Hart Crane. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanApr 12, 2018
It’s a pensive and heartfelt movie, assuming that you let yourself get caught up in its moody-minimalist, more-visual-than-verbal style. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 12, 2018
The Broken Tower feels unique as a young man’s tribute to an adventuresome, doomed soul. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnApr 12, 2018
Broken Tower feels stationary, repeating the same motifs and attitudes ad infinitum until the credits finally roll. Read full review
50
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeApr 12, 2018
Despite Franco’s laudable desire to shake up a stodgy genre, his film could have done with more life, and less art. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyApr 12, 2018
Despite the highly mobile and often arresting work of cinematographer Christina Voros, The Broken Tower is not a heady experience like many of the semi-experimental 1960s films he emulates. Instead, it's mostly a tedious chore, much akin to listening poetry you don't much like. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineMatthew ConnollyApr 12, 2018
It’s tonally flat and a little too impressed with its own elliptical construction. Yet there’s something about Franco’s desire to escape the straitjacket of the biopic’s pat psychologizing and greatest-hits structure that makes his film feel at least honest in its missteps. Read full review
50
VarietyJohn AndersonApr 12, 2018
Though clearly besotted with Crane’s poetry, the writer-director-star never achieves full immersion in the man’s life or work; the sense is of people playing a very cerebral game of dress-up. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 12, 2018
Franco’s rather flat narration doesn’t do justice to Crane’s verse, but he is a charismatic onscreen presence. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonApr 12, 2018
The Broken Tower is sincere, amateurish, and misguided. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen HoldenApr 12, 2018
Despite earnest attempts, Mr. Franco can’t bring the fervency of Crane’s poetry to life in the extensive recitations. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinApr 12, 2018
It plays like unwitting art-house self-parody from a narcissist who takes himself, and his brooding subject matter, way too seriously. Read full review
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