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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
4
Mixed:
15
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews
Jun 9, 2023
Season 1 Review:
It feels aimless in the early going—not uncharmingly so, but seemingly without a defined objective. To offer a carrot—that everything comes together in episode 6—is asking for a good deal of time and patience, but stick with it. The performances throughout are, at worst, mesmerizing.
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The Mercury NewsJun 7, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Showrunner Akiva Goldsman takes full advantage of the 1979 setting and fashions a successful psychological thriller filled with good performances and taut direction. But this series belongs to Holland and he’s shattering to behold. His emotionally staggering performances takes “The Crowded Room” to a whole new level.
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TV Guide MagazineJun 9, 2023
Season 1 Review:
If you can make it through the first five episodes, you will be rewarded. [12 Jun - 2 Jul 2023, p.6]
The GuardianJun 8, 2023
Season 1 Review:
An actor needs to hold the audience’s attention even as an Everyman figure and – no thanks to an unscintillating script – Holland is too quiet a presence to compel. Seyfried puts in a fine performance, but it feels like a bland comedown from her last outing as that walking bundle of contradictions Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout. That said, I haven’t watched the back half of the series.
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Jun 8, 2023
Season 1 Review:
It’s not that these topics aren’t handled with the care and sensitivity they deserve. They are. It’s just that they aren’t written particularly well, nor does the show really have anything new or interesting to say about them. It isn’t all bad news. Relative newcomers Sasha Lane (How To Blow Up A Pipeline) and Emma Laird (Mayor Of Kingstown) shine as Danny’s magnetic best friend-turned-accomplice and enigmatic love interest, respectively.
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Jun 9, 2023
Season 1 Review:
This is a really tentative recommendation. The performances in The Crowded Room should be compelling enough to hook you in, but we’re just not sure the story is going to progress fast enough for people to not throw their hands up in frustration by the second or third episode.
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Jun 9, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Even with the esteemed Akiva Goldsman (best adapted screenplay Oscar winner for “A Beautiful Mind”) as showrunner and a cast led by Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried delivering impactful performances, the false leads and acts of misdirection grow tiresome, the use of certain visual techniques to depict a main character’s torment is over-the-top, and the toning down of the magnitude of crimes committed by the real-life inspiration for the main character is borderline insulting to the victims and their families.
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Jun 8, 2023
Season 1 Review:
Some things make enough sense for one of Goldsman’s Dan Brown adaptations, but not really enough for a series that wants to engage in real-world problems and pathologies. The length of the series, which is padded with extraneous material — including a home life for Rya and a backstory for Danny’s mother and stepfather — and scenes that run longer than necessary, dilutes its effects, saps the drama of energy.
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ColliderJun 2, 2023
Season 1 Review:
When everything takes a moment to slow down and just listen to the characters in moments of emotional transformation, there is a glimpse of what a more focused version of this story could have been. Instead, the emphasis on lackluster mystery subsumes what could have been a meditation on these more heavy subjects is its greatest tragedy.
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The IndependentJun 9, 2023
Jun 8, 2023
Season 1 Review:
The maddening part is that the last few episodes, where every secret is out in the open, are a vast improvement over what’s come before. The Crowded Room doesn’t suddenly become great, but Holland, Seyfried, Christopher Abbott (as Danny’s beleaguered public defender), and Emmy Rossum (as Danny’s mother) all do their best work in this phase of things.
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Movie NationJun 12, 2023
Season 1 Review:
A couple of the performances here are pitched at a level that’s almost engaging. But wandering through vivid recreations of New York’s (gay) club scene on the cusp of New Wave, London stock footage exteriors and generic interiors becomes almost sleep inducing. There are NO STAKES IN “The Crowded Room.”
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