Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
Shadow Distribution | Release Date: June 12, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleJonathan Curiel
A beautiful film. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi could have used more music for my taste, and fewer talking heads. But it’s absorbing all the same. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesAnn Powers
Best when exploring the nitty gritty of N'Dour's life as a musician, favorite son and cultural ambassador. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
N’dour’s concert numbers and family visits are captivating, but Vasarhelyi is so uncritical toward the singer that she inadvertently makes him look as though he’s running for sainthood. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
But by far the most powerful element is N'Dour's lone voice, a thing of high, pure beauty that feels at once ancient and new. When he sings, an otherwise earnestly conventional film becomes a vehicle of incantatory power. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Love looks and sounds great, but in depicting N’Dour as a lofty symbol for music’s power to bridge worlds and inspire, it sometimes loses sight of the man. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Although his movie often resembles the kind of promotional video one might find as an extra on a concert DVD, N'Dour in full throttle is a sight, and sound, to behold. Read full review
60
Village VoiceNicolas Rapold
For all the singer's sincere intentions to build secular-religious bridges, a straight-up concert film might have been a better approach, especially given viewer fatigue with those musicians and their causes. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Though we see the same man throughout the bumpy tour captured here -- always calm, steady, faithful -- it's bound to prove an enlightening portrait for those who know him only as the guy who once worked with Peter Gabriel. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNathan Lee
Perhaps because the music is so good, with its purity of tone and dazzling rhythmic precision, the flaws of the surrounding movie become all the more obvious. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. Musetto
The film works best when we see N'Dour onstage. He has a great set of pipes and is nothing if not charismatic. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
Part concert film, part narrative, it isn't fully successful on either level, coming across more like an overlong DVD extra than a fully stand-alone work. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
When the film sticks to biographical and career background, it is on steady ground, but when it argues the case for one particular album, it becomes promotional rather than documentary material. Read full review
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