Waiting for the Barbarians
Samuel Goldwyn Films | Release Date (Streaming): August 7, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The PlaylistLuke HicksSep 12, 2019
The metaphors are a bit too numerous and on the nose at times, but Rylance’s unbelievable performance overshadows the minor downfalls. Read full review
67
The Film StageJared MobarakAug 4, 2020
Despite the on-the-nose delivery of its messaging being intentional, Coetzee’s script will surely alienate some viewers. The slow pacing won’t do it any favors either, considering it promises weightier drama than that heightened, moralizing tone could ever provide. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckAug 6, 2020
A novel like Coetzee’s invites readers to fill in the blank spaces. On a screen, we tend to crave more specificity. The result, coupled with a too-languorous pace, is a film that’s intermittently engrossing and always interesting, but less potent than it could have been. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 4, 2020
Depp could be dismissed as just a name and a costume who got the film financed, but his Franco-Teutonic take on Joll never quite crosses into caricature. It’s good to see him putting in the effort. Pattinson? His tiny part basically is just a name and a costume who got the film financed. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownAug 3, 2020
Ciro Guerra never quite finds an imagistic equivalent to the novel’s apocalyptic mood and subtly hallucinogenic atmosphere. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 7, 2020
This is proficient, measured filmmaking from a director who has already peered more deeply, and persuasively, into colonialism’s heart of darkness. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonAug 6, 2020
With a screenplay by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee from his 1980 novel, Waiting for the Barbarians is a parable of depressingly timeless relevance, which means it’s faithful to its source material. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 6, 2020
The desert outpost, mostly shot in Morocco by the gifted cinematographer Chris Menges (a two-time Oscar winner for his camera work on The Killing Fields and The Mission), becomes a powerful symbol of human decency trying to hold out under the brutal siege of alleged law and order. It’s thuddingly obvious who the real barbarians are. Read full review
60
The GuardianSep 12, 2019
It’s easy to read the film as a not particularly subtle metaphor for fascism or “the war on terror”, and its black hats aren’t so much characters as automatons. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 12, 2019
The critique of those in power and their need to put down others — preferably foreign or different-looking people — in order to stay on top is as relevant in 2019 as it was in 1980, when the novel was first published. But like its noncommittal production design, which combines various North African, Middle Eastern and Asian influences for the locals and locales, the critique itself remains finally quite dull and dispersed because it's so broad and unspecific. Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 12, 2019
Coetzee’s novel, with its measured, interiorized voice and sparse, incrementally devastating narrative, was never an obvious fit for film treatment. After a stiffly mannered, overwritten first act, however, Waiting for the Barbarians gradually gains in poetry and power, while Mark Rylance’s lead performance, as a liberal-minded colonial official undermined and overwhelmed by his tyrannical superiors, gives proceedings a quiet but firm moral core. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 13, 2020
The overwrought score and the Orwellian themes announce “Barbarians” as a prestige project brimming with Big Ideas, but it’s ultimately stilted and didactic, and more than a bit nasty. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comNick AllenAug 7, 2020
Despite the sincerity that’s in every scene with Rylance’s performance, the movie's good intentions remain wistful, and thoroughly frustrating. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartAug 6, 2020
If you’re into seeing Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson play truly despicable government officials, have I got a movie for you! Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 4, 2020
The film is deadly slow and uneventful, with brilliant scenes bursting to life, here and there, like roses in a wasteland. Read full review
50
IndieWireBen CrollSep 12, 2019
It’s all perfectly well-done, and it all recedes into memory the instant you leave the theater. Read full review
40
The New York TimesGlenn KennyAug 6, 2020
Guerra aestheticizes everything to an extreme. Read full review
30
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 12, 2019
Despite meticulous visuals and a strong central performance by Mark Rylance, the film feels dramatically ponderous and emotionally inert. Read full review
20
Film ThreatEnrique AcostaSep 8, 2020
Waiting for the Barbarians isn’t a terrible film, it just never delivers on any of its promises. Read full review
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