The Raft
| Release Date: June 7, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleJun 13, 2019
It’s a fascinating story of endurance, shaky scientific methods, and solidarity that’s been given a thoughtful resurrection thanks to the writings of Genovés himself – acted in voiceover by “Zama” star Daniel Giménez Cacho – and the recollections of seven participants. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarJun 13, 2019
Favored with copious amounts of footage shot during the voyage, as well as Genovés’ collected data and writings, Lindeen forged a riveting and illuminating study of the unscrupulous endeavor. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 13, 2019
This fascinating film, which goes into national distribution this week, reconstructs the event with 16mm footage shot during the voyage, interviews with surviving crew members, and a narration taken from the anthropologist’s diary in which he reveals himself to be a spectacularly cockeyed judge of human nature. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckJun 8, 2019
This is such a uniquely bizarre story that it can't help but exert a certain fascination. But it's hard to avoid the feeling that it would have been better served by a compelling dramatization rather than this too-dry documentary. Read full review
83
The Film StageVikram MurthiJun 8, 2019
The footage astounds, but the competing contextualizations breathe new life into the experiment, especially when Lindeen allows the surviving members free reign to confront past emotions. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsJun 7, 2019
One of the main pleasures of watching The Raft, a new documentary that combines decades-old footage of the Acali's 101-day voyage with modern-day commentary by the ship's six surviving crew mates, is that the Acali's story isn't just told from Genoves's self-mythologizing perspective. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganJun 6, 2019
A thoughtful and fascinating piece, it’s a game of two halves, however, with Lindeen making heavy work of modern-day footage which tends to drag on the dynamism of the past. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeJun 6, 2019
The surprisingly short leap from radical academic study to lurid exploitation is navigated with wit, sensitivity and rueful social awareness in Swedish director Marcus Lindeen’s gripping debut feature The Raft. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyJun 6, 2019
It’s all splendid fruit for a documentary, especially given two things: the remarkable filmed record of the expedition at the time, and the fact that seven of its members are still alive. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJun 6, 2019
It sounds like Big Brother on a boat, but The Raft is an absorbing portrait of a bold (or foolhardy) historical experiment that hits many of today’s hot-button topics, dominated by a compelling and complex central figure. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 6, 2019
It is an interesting story, and yet the film doesn’t quite summon up the atmosphere of the raft. It doesn’t fully plunge you into that strange milieu, nor does it quite analyse exactly what was going on. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 6, 2019
By setting Genovés’s words in counterpoint with the recollections of seven of the participants who are still alive, [Lindeen] reinterprets the experiment, finding meanings that the scientist missed. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJun 6, 2019
The Raft, like the people aboard it, floats along the surface of a vast ocean of mystery and memory. The result is a bizarre, captivating, and borderline unbelievable memory play that only supports a hypothesis Genovés wasn’t prepared to consider: We are blind to the world as it is when we only saw the world as we are. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayJun 3, 2019
The film uses Santiago Genovés’s experiment to scrutinize memory and capture the feeling of life under a very curious sort of dictatorship. Read full review
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