Woodshock
A24 | Release Date: September 22, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
39
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
12
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 28, 2017
Woodshock is both gorgeous and pretentious in equal measures, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that you don't get one without the other – or that, coming in the shadow of another free-form swing for the fences, any rush to ding the movie for being an exercise in style over substance isn't even slightly tinged by gender. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Nathalie AtkinsonSep 28, 2017
Woodshock is a sensuous, visual tone poem of human consciousness. It works even when the languid pace, disorienting shifts and Theresa's elastic perception of time stretch a little too thin. Read full review
63
Washington PostAlan ZilbermanSep 28, 2017
Defiantly inscrutable, Woodshock can test a viewer’s patience, yet the filmmakers’ consistent self-confidence creates an alluring, oddly hypnotic effect. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlDec 18, 2017
Woodshock is a study of a mind’s stoned studying, of its slipping in and out of a haze, rather than one of a mind’s unraveling or snapping. It’s just as interesting as that sounds — you’ll either embrace it or find it agony. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaSep 22, 2017
There are a lot of half-complete ideas among the sisters’ jumble of imagery, but trying to tie them together is a fitfully enjoyable, if ultimately fruitless experience. Read full review
50
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerSep 30, 2017
There’s agony in the margins of every frame, but it remains muted beneath so many layers of color and so many hands drifting across surfaces. Read full review
50
TheWrapDave WhiteSep 22, 2017
The Mulleavys have what it takes to continue in film if they decide to pursue this path, with a firm, confident hold on light, texture, color, mood, sound, and physical space. So if Woodshock is, ultimately, unsatisfying, it’s not because they haven’t put in the time to immerse you in their obsessions. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 21, 2017
Woodshock offers a whole lot to look at, but not all that much to see. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeSep 20, 2017
Viewers who thought nothing much happened in "It Comes At Night" are advised to steer clear. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 12, 2017
Filmmaking craft is not the issue here, it’s the timidity of the storytelling that sits in sharp contrast to the boldness of some of the visual and sonic experimentation. Read full review
42
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaSep 22, 2017
Woodshock is a movie which doesn’t seem to have much interest in being a movie. It revels in images and sensations...without much mind paid to story or character development or really even any context demanded by the difficult issues it raises. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghSep 28, 2017
There’s daring in the film’s slow unfurling. The problem, though, isn’t one of patience but of payoff. Woodshock is beautiful but it’s all chassis, a root-dead tree that crumbles beneath the ax. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 27, 2017
The first impression is definitely one of all style, and precious little substance. Read full review
40
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 12, 2017
With the film’s human element so glassy and its storytelling so thin, however, all this elegant formal trickery soon turns more aggravating than intoxicating — by its extremely splintered, impressionistic finale, the film skates perilously close to misery chic. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 12, 2017
The main problem is that the directors often struggle to assign meaning to their images that helps advance either the narrative or illuminate the emotional state of their main character. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 28, 2017
Now and then the Mulleavys capture a moment or glimmer of true mystery; more often, and certainly in dramatic terms, Woodshock feels like a movie that never stops buffering. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 27, 2017
A woozy, wheezy impressionistic take on a woman’s nervous breakdown that aspires to the avant-garde but plays like a bad head-trip movie from the late 1960s. It’s dreadful. Worse, it’s not quite bad enough to be much fun. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenSep 22, 2017
With its gauzily surreal touches, Woodshock reflects the Mulleavys’ romantic flair for texture and embellishment. But as Theresa’s guilt and self-medication mount, along with the film’s profoundly muddled ideas about assisted suicide, the curated trance grows mind-numbing. It’s a death trip with pretty lingerie. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisSep 20, 2017
Unlike their spring 2018 fashion collection, Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s first foray into moviemaking, “Woodshock,” is depressingly dull and terminally inarticulate. Read full review
30
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 12, 2017
There’s a thin, and very jagged, line between the radical mosaic approach to editing and narrative of a film like Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and the impressionistic jigsaw vagueness of Woodshock, which simply seems reluctant to commit itself to mere coherence, as if that simply were too unchic. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 28, 2017
Woodshock is its own worst enemy. The more the filmmakers play around with what’s real and what’s a dream or an element of Theresa’s delusions, the less we’re invested in what’s actually happening with Theresa. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubSep 28, 2017
The filmmakers offer very few clues, just more aqua filters and low-contrast visuals. And with each new jarring edit, the viewer cares less and less, until the 100 minutes seem to stretch on forever. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireSep 23, 2017
The dream — or the drug-induced hallucination, or whatever this is — can only last for so long. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineHenry StewartSep 20, 2017
It becomes the obnoxious equivalent of trying to have a serious conversation with people who are high out of their minds. Read full review
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