Disco | Telescope Film
Disco

Disco

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Mirjam is a highly successful competitive dancer, and the pride of her cultish megachurch. When she begins struggling at competitions and collapsing on stage, her family blames it on a lack of faith. Without any real support from the people around her, she turns to increasingly radical religious practices to cope.

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What are critics saying?

80

Film Threat by Alex Saveliev

Disco is about how toxicity seeps into everything from masculinity to religion to parenting and, yes, even dancing. It’s as beautiful and heartbreaking as watching a dancer pirouette into an abyss.

80

Screen Daily by Lee Marshall

It’s the empathy Syversen and her lead actress evoke for a free spirit battered into submission that is this tough little film’s greatest achievement.

70

The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer

The canvas may be strewn with glitter and glory, but beneath the surface Syversen provides a chilling look at how religion can be used to ignore deeper personal traumas, convincing youngsters to turn to god when they should perhaps be turning to therapy or something more probing.

58

The Film Stage by C.J. Prince

We’re ultimately left with a sense of formal stillness and relief brought about by the conservative spiritualism that feels strangely vague and unearned.

50

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

By the time it is over, Disco has crossed the line that separates being productively ambiguous from being simply cryptic.

42

The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth

Though blessed with a strong lead performance by Pettersen, “Disco” is quick to knock the empty spectacle that undoubtedly accounts for significant portions of contemporary Christianity without entertaining the notion that, for some, faith does hold real value in their lives. It’s not particularly challenging to make a punching bag out of any organized religion, but it takes a far more clever piece of filmmaking to acknowledge its shortcomings and benefits while still maintaining a critical tone. Unfortunately, Disco isn’t that picture.