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Critic Reviews
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I appreciate that there is an effort, both by Prince and the writers, to make sure that Hilde is more than just some one-dimensional cute or precocious brat, and that there seems to be some serious fire in her veins when police officers initially dismiss her with a pat on the head. And do I indeed want to see—and do I want mine and other kids to see—an intrepid female reporter on the case? Yep. Do I wish that there were more adult versions of her on screen? Of course. But do I also wish the particulars of the job were handled more responsibly, especially in the era of fake news, and certainly if kids were going to watch? Uh huh.
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Thanks to the steady, solid work of nine-year-old star Brooklynn Prince ("The Florida Project"), the 10-episode "Home Before Dark" has the ability to engage viewers of every age. Even the detail that Hilde has seen "All the President's Men" 36 times doesn't feel forced or phony. ... Indeed, this is a viewing pleasure that acknowledges the viewer's intelligence, although aspects may be a bit to dark to fit the classic definition of a family friendly series.
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Home Before Dark is a good 10-episode watch — at times very good. ... Prince is remarkable, and for every fleeting moment that you sense the "actor" in her coming to the surface, she follows it with a beat that's utterly spontaneous and affecting. ... I was consistently impressed by how many of the bigger things Home Before Dark does right. It all begins and ends with Prince.
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"Home Before Dark" strikes an impressive balance, because its storytellers are willing to take all of its characters seriously, while carefully unfolding a good mystery that affects everyone. "Home Before Dark" has all the hallmarks of excellent family entertainment.
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Home Before Dark is a solid show that features a character inspired by a real-life kid investigative reporter.
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The mystery story and the family drama of “Home Before Dark,” both wildly inflated from the facts of Hilde Lysiak’s life, push the limits of implausibility and sentimentality even by the standards of a soapy, sins-of-the-parents family melodrama. ... That the show speeds by not just painlessly but engagingly owes in part to a darkly handsome production and to some appealing adult performances. ... But the main attraction, from start to finish, is the insouciance and conviction that Prince brings to her portrayal.
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[Brooklynn Prince is] a compulsively watchable actor. She plays the fanciful premise (“What if Veronica Mars, but tinier?”) with such utter conviction that Home Before Dark is appealing in spite of its flaws.
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[Brooklynn] Prince is a real find and Hilde’s relationship with her father forms a heartwarming backbone for the series. But the tone is confusing: Too dark to be a family show, even though it has a family at the core, “Home Before Dark” offers a dark mystery plot instead.
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There’s a sheer abundance of side characters, all of whom are solid but fail to touch the gap Sturgess and Prince carve out for themselves.
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Whenever Hilde’s on-screen, the show is a gumshoe adventure, sometimes even with lovely animated interludes to explain backstory, or Hilde closing her eyes to remember a clue in her apparently photographic memory and applying Sherlock Holmes-style deduction. Whenever the spotlight is on Matt, it turns into a grittier tale of faded dreams, childhood trauma and corruption. It’s “The Goonies” by way of “Serial,” a no doubt attractive pitch that nonetheless has trouble establishing a steady voice of its own until deep into its first 10-episode season.
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The characters’ trajectories are easy to predict by around the halfway mark, if not earlier, but the narratively is shamelessly unresolved. The weight that tugs at the story isn’t thematic heft; it’s the self-made burden of a network-style show that stubbornly refuses to find worthwhile resolution.
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What saves it from simple tedious schmaltz (notwithstanding the clambering-on-tabletops-in-solidarity scene in the cafeteria as Hilde reads out – so fearlessly! So maturely! So driven-by-the-truthly! – the online comments from under her murder report) is Prince’s performance. She is simply astonishing. You wouldn’t believe her character in any other hands.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 15 out of 19
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Mixed: 1 out of 19
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Negative: 3 out of 19
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Apr 4, 2020
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May 3, 2021
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Jun 10, 2020This show was surprisingly really good. The show kept you engaged and wanting to know more. Good watch.