Becoming Cary Grant

:

Season 1
  • Network: SHOWTIME
  • Series Premiere Date: Jun 9, 2017
Metascore
62

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6

Critic Reviews

  1. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    Jun 8, 2017
    80
    The man gets his due in Becoming Cary Grant, a moody jewel of a film that draws on Grant’s unpublished autobiography for much of its narration (delivered by actor Jonathan Pryce) and on a wealth of home-movie footage that provides a Grant’s-eye view of a bygone world.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Robert Lloyd
    Jun 8, 2017
    70
    Its only failings--and that is perhaps too strong a word--are a few re-created scenes of the actor’s acid sessions and some questionable or obvious juxtapositions of images. But the film has an interesting meditative pace and a kind of self-sufficient weight.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    Jun 8, 2017
    60
    Perfectly decent as an appreciative account of the great star's life and career, Mark Kidel's film aspires to something more. ... But it falls far short of the fascination of the 2010 Vanity Fair article that revealed all this in the first place, “Cary in the Sky With Diamonds” by Judy Balaban (who is interviewed onscreen here) and Cari Beauchamp.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Neil Genzlinger
    Jun 8, 2017
    60
    The film, elusive and impressionistic, is at least somewhat successful in capturing that inner tumult.
  6. Variety
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Jun 8, 2017
    50
    Even with a subject as great as Cary Grant, and a take on him that appears to have all its metaphysical Old Hollywood signifiers in place, Becoming Cary Grant is a murky and rather disappointing biographical portrait. T
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Jun 8, 2017
    50
    Kidel makes good use of clips from several Grant films at times, but at other times, Kidel goes terribly off the rails. ... The documentary adds to the mountain of information about Grant, and brings us somewhat closer to understanding who he really was. But it’s likely aspects of both Archie Leach and Cary Grant will remain an enigma forever.