Three Christs
IFC Films | Release Date: January 10, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
39
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
7
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJan 3, 2020
Gracefully directed by Fried Green Tomatoes and Justified director Jon Avnet, Three Christs is a great dark comedy about a dark subject. I can’t say enough how great the performances are. It’s a relevant character study on those who suffer from mental illness and the ones who treat it and why they do. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 25, 2019
Devolves from quiet character study into full-blown, over-the-top “star vehicle” in its last act. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergJan 9, 2020
Whether it is the star power of the cast or the seductiveness of the period recreation, Three Christs has an appealing professionalism — an odd fit for a film about challenging a profession. Read full review
58
The Film StageJared MobarakJan 24, 2020
While Avnet’s film is effective melodrama, it’s hardly a completely honest depiction of what happened. Read full review
55
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJan 23, 2020
Avnet likely means well, just as Rokeach meant well. Three Christs needs more than a deep focus on the Christs themselves, and on the system that so utterly failed them. It needs to focus on Stone, and on the collision between ego and benevolence that led to The Three Christs of Ypsilanti’s birth. That should be the story. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJan 11, 2020
It’s a dull story that is still worth telling — but in a better film than Three Christs. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiJan 8, 2020
An insipid, boring mess, Three Christs doesn’t even have the decency to be amusing, apart from Stephen Root’s forced delivery of the film’s title followed by a what-a-world head shake. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayJan 9, 2020
Like the original experiment, this film fails when it tries to impose a conclusion, rather than letting its meaning reveal itself naturally. Read full review
40
TheWrapMonica CastilloJan 8, 2020
The cast can’t cure all the movie’s problems, from its abrupt ending to a random acid-test scene, but it’s not without its curious appeal as a star-studded failed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” experiment. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyJan 10, 2020
Three Christs opts in for frustratingly broad characters that feel like half-considered caricatures and Jeff Russo’s sentimental, strings-heavy score that flattens whatever modest edge the movie might have had. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezJan 6, 2020
By the end, it’s as if a good doctor’s god complex has been taken up by the film itself. Read full review
30
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 10, 2020
As audiences, we trust filmmakers to do a reasonably accurate job of representing stories based in truth, and we get angry when they take the kind of liberties Avnet and company allow themselves here. As if it weren’t bad enough that Three Christs were boring, it’s impossible to believe, and for that, there is no cure. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonJan 8, 2020
Just an odd mess of a movie. That you feel anything at all is a tribute to the acting talent of Dinklage and Goggins, who occasionally make us care. Read full review
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