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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
15
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Aug 19, 2020
Season 1 Review:
What’s so chilling about The Vow — HBO’s immersive new docuseries about NXIVM, the New York-based “self-help group” brought down by charges of sexual slavery — is how vividly it illustrates the seductive and insidious ways these groups lure intelligent, well-meaning people into servitude.
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Oct 12, 2022
Season 2 Review:
As storytelling, this is crisper and cleaner than “The Vow’s” first iteration; as psychological portrait, little in the nonfiction space of late matches its acuity. ... This series builds upon and improves upon the work the franchise had already done — and stands out, too.
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Oct 18, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Like the first season, The Vow Part II moves quickly, even as it dives deeper into the people who were and still are loyal to Keith Reinere, finding out their reasoning, motivation and rationalizations. Those conversations, paired with the information from the trial, will make for an interesting second season.
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Aug 24, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Noujaim and Amer could have led "The Vow" with these lurid details. Instead they choose the staider route of depicting how innocent and legitimate this enterprise seemed to its participants – many of them intelligent, driven people attracted to Raniere's and Salzman's illusion of combined genius. Ultimately this approach makes "The Vow" more fascinating and horrifying because it persuasively argues that anyone can fall for influence techniques, including the smartest of us.
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Aug 24, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The fact that Raniere took what could be seen as a calculated, logical, scientific approach to his program fascinates us even more. When you hear him talk, he sounds less like a motivational speaker and more like a college professor or a wonky tech CEO. ... The Vow benefits from access to people like Vicente and Edmondson, plus lots of footage from various NXIVM organizational videos, meetings, and other insightful stuff.
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Aug 19, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The generous peppering of insider NXIVM videos throughout The Vow renders the dorky, soft-spoken Raniere, who appears not to have participated in the documentary, a thoroughly unimpressive figure, while providing visual relief from the many talking-head interviews. Overall, the production is handsome and well-structured, with new episodes unearthing new layers of viciousness and manipulation.
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Aug 18, 2020
Season 1 Review:
“The Vow” pushes back against its slack pace to become television that compels — both for the access it has and for what it does with that access. ... This series, in its methodical nature, attempts to restage Edmondson’s own coming into consciousness, and that it largely succeeds is an impressive feat of bearing witness.
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Oct 13, 2022
Season 2 Review:
In many ways, Part Two represents an impressive evolution on the original season, pushing further into the most uncomfortable aspects of the NXIVM saga and delivering some cathartic moments of justice for those whose lives were torn apart by Raniere and his lieutenants.
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Aug 21, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The filmmakers have an immense treasure trove of footage to draw from, but only a few defectors willing to be interviewed on camera. At times, the whiplash between the banality of the source material and the extreme nature of the allegations is striking. ... One thing The Vow does well is break down the techniques of emotional abuse Raniere and his inner circle used to manipulate lower-ranking members, so we understand why they stuck around—if not why they were devoted to this man in particular.
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Aug 21, 2020
RogerEbert.comAug 21, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Nine hours of this story crosses from exhaustive to exhausting in “The Vow.” The amazing access to personal stories as they unfolded likely led directors Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer to err on the side of inclusion, but the repetitive, unedited nature of the series actually diminishes its intended impact. ... Still, there’s power in each episode of “The Vow,” even if it’s assembled in a manner than never completely worked for me.
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