The Girl and the Spider | Telescope Film
The Girl and the Spider

The Girl and the Spider (Das Mädchen und die Spinne)

Critic Rating

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Lisa is moving out of her apartment with her friends Mara and Markus and into her first apartment of her own. Lisa is excited for the change, but for Mara it unleashes a torrent of complicated emotions. The day of the move, tensions bubble to the surface.

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What are critics saying?

100

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

The film demands and rewards repeat viewings; it’s different, and more entrancing, every time.

100

Film Threat by Sumner Forbes

Meticulously crafted with powerfully nuanced performances, the film represents the best of what European cinema has to offer and is easily among the year’s best.

91

The Film Stage by Christopher Schobert

The Girl and the Spider’s lovely concluding shot visualizes this fading relationship, and stands as the filmmakers’ final statement on the fleeting nature of love in all its forms. It is both bitter and sweet. So is this beautiful film.

90

The Hollywood Reporter by Sheri Linden

Unlike Mara, the writer-directors of The Girl and the Spider can shape and control their story. They orchestrate a closing sequence of high-impact lyricism, bringing their tale of the mystery-infused quotidian to a shimmering, open-ended conclusion.

90

Los Angeles Times by Carlos Aguilar

Unassumingly electrifying and amusingly elusive, this modern-day fable focuses on the marks we leave behind in others when paths diverge and physical distance grows.

83

IndieWire by Ryan Lattanzio

This is an odd film of poetic abstractions and ellipses, but consistently fascinating in its unrepentant coyness.

80

Variety by Peter Debruge

Few directors could get away with giving audiences so little context or plot, but the Zürchers succeed in piquing our curiosity, which is all one really needs to sustain a film.

75

RogerEbert.com by Glenn Kenny

My own taste runs to different modes of poetic cinema, but I credit The Girl and the Spider for the seemingly paradoxical clarity of its mysterious vision.

75

The A.V. Club by Mark Keizer

It pays off in a work of gorgeous stylistic precision where cautious glances and wistful anecdotes melt together to form a melancholy arthouse jewel about the tearing down of one woman’s identity.

70

Screen Daily by Allan Hunter

Precisely observed but somewhat aloof in tone, The Girl And The Spider builds into a symphony of separation and solitude.

50

Slant Magazine by Carson Lund

Zürcher spins byzantine webs of audiovisual stimuli from an ultimately modest dramatic core, and not only is the larger narrative design unclear before it’s finally revealed, it’s easy to get stuck dwelling on the minutia along the way.