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Positive:
11
Mixed:
15
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Jan 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Jenkins’ direction allows space for Pine’s performance to muscle through any holes and shortcomings in “I Am the Night,” while Eisley’s grace and silence convey the threat of the Hodels’ menace. As it comes together, the final cut isn’t quite a bleeding-edge thriller so much as a visually sumptuous, slightly filthy noir attraction that doesn’t necessarily shed outrageous new light on a vintage mystery. But it succeeds in elevating the best in the talent resurrecting a piece of it.
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TV Guide MagazineJan 17, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The writing can lay the nihilism on a bit thick. ... And yet there's no denying the spellblindingly ominous mood cast over six episodes. [21 Jan - 3 Feb 2019, p.12]
Jan 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The series' historical speculation is just dirty and plausible enough for the story. But the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short is beside the point: What the series does best is capture the sick fascination with grisly violence, making the audience complicit in the grotesque world it portrays.
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Jan 24, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Night stumbles through some complex racial themes; to be blunt, it’s more comfortable with the rapey-murdery angle. But there’s sincere texture in the exploration of Fauna’s African-American family. ... Night isn’t great L.A. Noir--the plot moves at corpse speed--but it’s a vivid TV treat, filmed in real locations haunted by history that might just be too weird for basic cable.
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IndieWireNov 27, 2018
Season 1 Review:
I Am the Night may be a little too formulaic to be TV’s next limited series with maximum impact--a la “Sharp Objects,” or what TNT really wants, another “True Detective”--but it’s well positioned to deliver the kind of entertainment that overly serious fare often overlooks.
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Jan 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Pine’s lightness mitigates a lot of paint-by-number murk in the course of this miniseries--six episodes of louche noir, mildly feverish nonsense, and murder-mystery comfort food. ... Despite the absence of a badge, Singletary might be the truest detective on television. There’s a refreshing honesty to his trashiness.
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Jan 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Unfortunately, though Eisley is affecting, Fauna’s story feels like it’s skimmed over. The racial elements are intriguing. ... But, like Fauna’s character, this aspect of the tale is underdeveloped. Pine, who’s also an executive producer, has more success with Jay, giving a contemporary spin to a film noir-style antihero.
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Jan 17, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Fauna, portrayed by India Eisley with wide-eyed naiveté that occasionally crystallizes into a flinty determination to get to the bottom of her complicated origin story. ... Pine throws himself into the part with his usual gusto, giving Jay a manic edge that keeps him from floating too far into cliché. That does not, unfortunately, hold true for the rest of the series, which proves to be the kind of drama wherein a revelation drops and a dramatic peal of thunder isn’t far behind.
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Jan 26, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Slow and stupid more often than it shows signs of genuine noir craft, and yet will probably hook you if you watch very much of it. Its ample supply of celebrity kink, cold-case magnetism, and twilight menace will easily (okay, not easily, but adequately) distract you from its corpse-like pace, its blockhead dialogue, and, well, everything else.
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Jan 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It takes a few episodes for Pat/Fauna and Jay’s paths to come together; by the time they do, a crucial amount of plot momentum has been sacrificed for the sake of establishing a creepily suggestive mood. Jenkins clearly wants to deliver on a theme of motherhood and abandonment, but Eisley has difficulty shouldering the weight of Pat/Fauna’s story, which just grows weirder instead of more compelling.
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The Daily BeastJan 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
A slick, functional update of an L.A. noir. But it takes far too long to get weird—you’ll have to stick around until episode four for the sex cults, incest, violence, and freaky performance art; until then, it’s too many clichés from movies you’ve seen before, with little new to add.
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Jan 25, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Eisley is not up to carrying the emotional load it requires, especially at this measured pace. Over the course of six hours, Fauna is forced to grow up a lot from the largely sheltered girl we first meet, but Eisley’s performance barely varies from one landing point to the next. While Jay’s end of things is dripping with film noir tropes (one pivotal confrontation takes place in Chinatown, just in case we’re not clear that this story has things to say about the murky morality of powerful institutions), it’s much livelier thanks to Pine, even if Jay ultimately turns out to be primarily Fauna’s sidekick.
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Jan 15, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Eisley is lovely, but placid and reactive. Even when Fauna's playing detective, there's nothing inquisitive in the character, no intensity in the performance and none of the writers nor directors--Victoria Mahoney and Carl Franklin follow Jenkins---quite knows what to do with her. ... Pine is exceptional--raw, broken and yet very funny. Whether he forces the story to become his by virtue of his A-list status and charisma, because Eisley is too meek to command the frame or because the writers' interest in Fauna is fickle, remains open to debate.
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Jan 25, 2019ColliderJan 23, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The important racial component of this story is shallow and stereotyped, and the connections to the crimes of George Hodel are faintly rendered. I Am the Night paints a decent portrait of mid-century L.A. noir, but it mistakes darkness with depth, treating anything real or substantive with coy hesitation.
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RogerEbert.comNov 27, 2018
Season 1 Review:
If I Am The Night is disappointingly uninterested in the inner workings of Singletary, then it flatly refuses to acknowledge that Fauna might have any. Eisley doesn’t fare as well as Pine, a fact that can be attributed in part to the writing. The series is content to turn Fauna into a would-be Nancy Drew
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