What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
Juno Films | Release Date: December 13, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 1, 2019
An exquisitely crafted documentary about the woman who was arguably the greatest movie critic who ever lived. Read full review
80
TheWrapJames GreenbergDec 12, 2019
To see Rob Garver’s affectionate documentary about her career,“What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, is to be once again swept away by the excitement of cinema as she experienced it. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 1, 2019
Befitting the subject's personality and entertainment predilections, What She Said is adamantly engaging, full of lively, appreciative voices that, more than anything else, bring her enthusiasm and keen-mindedness back to life. Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyDec 1, 2019
Garver’s film is above all a celebration of the pleasure of intellectual and emotional response to art (“To be paid for thinking is a marvellous way to live,” Kael says), and a picture of a style of thinking that might be seen as distinctively but non-stereotypically female. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 12, 2020
Writer-director Rob Garver has gotten at the essence of the woman — a frustrated playwright who turned criticism into “short stories and sonnets,” as one fan says. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 12, 2020
What She Said pays fitting homage, not just to a great writer but to a vanished age. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyJan 22, 2020
The subject alone should ensure that it gets lots of attention from film reviewers and despite a jumpy, hodge-podge style, should be generally enjoyable to anyone interested in the seductive, contentious cultural phenomenon of The New Yorker’s famous critic. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNell MinowDec 13, 2019
It was perhaps a strength as a critic and a weakness as a person that she never understood how painful her words could be. Read full review
75
IndieWireKate ErblandNov 28, 2018
Despite that iffy start, Garver’s film blossoms into something more comprehensive than complimentary, a film that doesn’t balk at the trickier aspects of Kael’s career, even as it never fully engages with the tensions that informed her. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 12, 2020
What She Said is a good movie, an engaging look at probably the most influential film critic of all time. (If you want to make a case for Roger Ebert, know that he was one of her followers.) But it’s obviously not the best way to understand her work and her influence. There’s only one real way to do that: Read her. Read full review
70
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJan 23, 2020
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is a wonderful visitation of the famed critic’s life. It’s also a great place to start if you know nothing about her. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 12, 2019
Dealing with a personality this strong could not have been easy, and director Garver, whose background is in short films, does a balanced job, giving space to Kael’s partisans while finding time for the other side. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 20, 2020
Leave it to James to sum up a legendary, culture-altering talent: “She turned her lack of self-awareness into a triumph.” Both sides of that coin live on in our modern culture, and Kael’s voice fills every self-satisfied corner of the Internet. Two decades after her death, she’s still the ghost in the machine. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Chandler LevackJan 15, 2020
The state of modern criticism has never been so splintered. We create harsher and harsher binaries in our online response to cinema every day, so reading Kael can make you go, “Hey, remember pleasure?” While Garver’s documentary isn’t worthy of its subject’s fascinating artistic legacy, I anxiously await the one that is. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenDec 17, 2019
The documentary is enjoyable, but one suspects that its subject may have found it soft. Read full review
40
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisDec 26, 2019
A numbing torrent of largely unidentified film clips and poorly labeled commentary, Rob Garver’s overstuffed tribute to the life and work of America’s best-known — and most written about — film critic is at times barely coherent. Read full review
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