58
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? is hardly a disappointment, but it does, in places, feel like a missed opportunity.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
This is in many ways a frustrating film, its commitment admirable but its execution chaotic.
58
The Film Stage by Ethan Vestby
One’s pulse is not raised much during the two-hour runtime. This is especially disappointing from a director who has made sure to capture parts of America no other filmmakers seem to want to touch with a ten-foot pole.
60
While always attractive, the look conveys a level of non-spontaneous construction that often takes away from the potency of hard, brutal reality.
100
The vision of the black American experience might be grim, but it is never miserablist or despairing. The songs, the traditions, the love and the community are still there, even if the world seems to be undeniably on fire.
80
Screen International by Lee Marshall
Shot with grace and sensitivity in black and white using available and natural light, What You Gonna Do is a visual treat, the easiest on the eye of all the director’s films to date. It is also, for all its unevenness, a stirring, committed portrait of black lives at a crossroads in the American South.