The Congress
Independent | Release Date: August 29, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
IndieWireEric KohnMay 22, 2013
A wholly original and thoroughly surprising fusion of sensory overload and liberal philosophy bound to confuse and provoke in equal measures. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comScout TafoyaAug 29, 2014
The Congress, playing fast and loose with a source novel by Stanislaw Lem, splits from its version of reality at the 45-minute mark, and at that point becomes a decadent post-modern classic. Read full review
87
Film.comJordan HoffmanMay 22, 2013
The first half of “The Congress,” while still fascinating, does suffer a bit from keeping its focus on the gripes and accusations between Hollywood actors and producers...Once the Philip K. Dick-meets-”Inception” second half kicks in, the implications grow more universal. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 5, 2014
The film has a transcendent spookiness. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanAug 25, 2014
Israeli director Ari Forman, whose 2009 "Waltz with Bashir" earned a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination, is a master at exploiting diverse animated styles, and draws a brave starring performance from a performer who, in her mid-40s, seems to be just hitting her stride. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 4, 2014
Ari Folman’s genre mash-up The Congress could use a freakier title, something either more appealing or appalling to go with the weird, sometimes wonderful visions flowing through it. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 3, 2014
This potent emotional undercurrent goes a long way toward counteracting the movie’s clumsier moments, carrying us aloft to a finale that, in its strange mix of trepidation and tenderness, is truly sublime. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 28, 2014
In conjuring a fantastical slippery slope in which technology, pharmaceuticals and the entertainment industry co-star in a takeover of our lives, The Congress boasts a propulsive image-making pull. Read full review
80
Total FilmStephen KellyAug 25, 2014
Whether visual or thematic, Folman’s bold, eccentric ideas never fail to astound; but they also never truly cohere into a satisfying narrative throughline. Read full review
80
CineVueD.W. MaultAug 25, 2014
For a film that looks at a believably nightmarish future, The Congress sits out of its time; a feverish relic of a post-revolutionary cinema of the mind that attempts to transcend the confines of a bloated filmic space that appears no longer interested in discourse, and would rather parley its audience into a stupefied boredom. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 3, 2014
The Congress doesn’t fully live up to its lofty ambitions, but it does attempt something most filmmakers wouldn’t even dream of — a dystopian blend of live-action and animation that acidly comments on some of Hollywood’s touchiest issues before drifting off into an existential fog. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereAug 29, 2014
There’s something to be said for a movie that manages to baffle and dazzle in equal measure. If Daffy Duck had taken up political and media theory, his brain might look like this. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonAug 27, 2014
Like its actress, it's an ambitious knockout that doesn't quite live up to its potential. But its argument is worth hearing: Instead of crying for the collapse of one actress, Folman is crying for the collapse of civilization, the triumph of the synthetic over the real. Read full review
67
HitfixGuy LodgeAug 25, 2014
It's precisely as bonkers as it sounds, and at two hours, both wearisome and claustrophobic... But flashes of fury and beauty remain. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 22, 2013
Overloaded with too many ideas, it does scant justice to the more interesting ones that crop up, while regularly diverting from any sort of central narrative to follow tenuous and ill-explained threads that end up in a foggy limbo. But just when it threatens to wholly frustrate, someone cracks an enjoyable inside-baseball meta movie-making joke and we're back on side for a bit. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoSep 4, 2014
Lem’s story is merely a springboard for Folman’s wildly sprawling meditations on what the advent of virtual performance means — for artistic integrity, creative spirit, celebrity culture, human identity, even our hold on reality. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 25, 2014
[Folman's] film is an alluring curio, a protest against the digital frontier which gets stuck with a knotty internal paradox – it starts out as thoroughly its own experiment, and ends up like a counterfeit of too many others. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonAug 13, 2014
Folman’s vision is just too personal and obtuse, and the result can feel rather like watching someone else drop acid, enjoying their giddy descriptions of all the pretty colours but unable to fully engage. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinAug 11, 2014
A fascinating and visually impressive intellectual helter-skelter ride, but the lack of narrative coherence lets down its promising sci-fi concepts and satire. Read full review
60
The DissolveNoel MurrayJul 14, 2014
Too much of Ari Folman’s half-animated science-fiction feature The Congress feels just a bit off—but every now and then, the concept, the performances, and Folman’s visual flair combine to produce something extraordinary. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 22, 2013
Ambition markedly outstrips achievement in The Congress, a visionary piece of speculative fiction that drops the ball after a fine set-up. Read full review
60
The GuardianXan BrooksMay 22, 2013
The Congress contains tricks aplenty and ideas in abundance. The problem comes in herding these scattered, floating elements towards a satisfying whole. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 5, 2014
It’s fascinating and boring, intriguing and exasperating, but ultimately it felt like a jambalaya of ideas that didn’t quite mesh into a satisfying experience. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyAug 28, 2014
Ari Folman's meta-commentary on Hollywood in the soulless digital age starts off promisingly, like a Charlie Kaufman mind scrambler. But then it spirals into logy animated nonsense. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloAug 27, 2014
It’s a folly of the first order, but one that many people will nonetheless want to see, if only because it’s so out there. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 27, 2014
Wright is terrific – sensitive and alert – in the live-action opening. But that opening runs more than 45 minutes long, a way too heavy-handed preamble to the crazed animation to come, and the actress’ vocal delivery – soft-spoken, gently bewildered – is too soporific to pull off lines like, “Look at me, I’m your prophet of doom.” Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 24, 2014
The film lacks the manic fly-by-night invention of, say, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or even the ripe erotic ambiguity of something like Avatar. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 5, 2014
On the one hand, there's a thrill in such experimentalism. On the other, it doesn't always deliver a fully satisfying moviegoing experience. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanSep 4, 2014
It’s almost painful to watch the immense promise of The Congress, Ari Folman’s spectacularly ambitious experiment, dissipate into nothing. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 22, 2013
Apart from its general knock against ageism in Hollywood, The Congress doesn’t have much insight to offer on the subject. Read full review
37
Washington PostJohn DeForeAug 28, 2014
The film is ambitious and heartfelt, with pressing concerns about the virtualization and fantasization of reality. But it’s a blunder, one interesting mostly for what it might have been. Read full review
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