50
Even smut can be dull.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
An elegant but muddled affair, worth seeing despite (and maybe because of) its own split personality.
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Touching and sentimental.
50
Hodgepodge of archival, re-enactment and staged fictive elements.
40
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
A dry compendium of talking-head interviews.
50
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
It is a mash note from first-time filmmaker Pola Rapaport to Aury, but its attempts to dramatize passages of the book are at odds with Aury's advice that "Story of O" was a piece of writing "not meant to be spoken."
30
Village Voice by Jessica Winter
Pola Rapaport's slender documentary-cum-reconstruction Writer of O disappoints in its workmanlike approach to such fragrant material.
60
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
No voice is more vivid than that of the writer of O, who died in 2002.
30
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
A most unfortunate film that combines standard documentary techniques, including talking-head interviews, with some maladroit dramatizations from Aury's life and her novel.
50
More speculative than deeply felt.