50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
The acting is strong, but the uneven pacing means there is so much to absorb in the end, that it’s impossible to discern.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
A portrait of lives that can’t be reduced to statistics.
83
Life and Nothing More may be shot with the unblinking attention of Frederick Wiseman’s films — and share their same broad scope of concerns — but it’s always true to the tenderness of its title.
90
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
It’s a vital, singularly crafted film that simply tells it — or more specifically shows it — like it is through the eyes of a struggling African American single mother and the adolescent son she desperately wants to keep out of trouble against the mounting odds.
75
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
By letting the cast improvise their reactions through the lens of their experiences, Esparza finds truth instead. By highlighting Bleechington and Williams’ performances, he exposes how injustice is the new “normal” and how the consequences of one’s misfortunate reverberate well beyond him/herself.
91
If part of the great power of cinema is in being a visual medium that can somehow give form to the intangible, Esparza’s sophomore film is exemplary: it makes manifest such enormous, politicized intangibles as race, class and gender relations through the authentic portrayal of real lives, real people, vividly played.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Jonathan Holland
Located somewhere between family drama and social crit, the quiet but intense Life stands out mainly for the compelling naturalism of its non-pro performances and for a script which teeters dangerously on the edge of preachiness without falling in.
90
Screen International by Jonathan Romney
So compellingly directed and acted that for much of the time we could almost be watching a documentary, Life and Nothing More is an involving, quietly moving piece that eschews conventional narrative shape to offer a multi-layered depiction of exactly what the title promises.
88
Antonio Méndez Esparza crafts a revealing portrait of life as lived under a regime of race and class oppression.
80
Life and Nothing More wants to be a window where no part is unsmudged or unnecessarily ornamented, and the view is remarkable for showing what you rarely see in two movie hours: a respect for the naturally compelling immediacy of the everyday struggle.