70
Simultaneously gritty and cerebral.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Distinguished less by its elements of melodrama and psychodrama than by its intense acting and the vivid immediacy of Levring's powerful imagery.
75
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
It's an excellent fusion of subject and style.
40
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
A deeper problem in The King Is Alive is an almost total absence of spontaneity.
60
wWhat doesn't entirely succeed as convincing psychodrama makes one hell of an acting exercise (it's great fun to see great actors purposely mangle the Bard's immortal words), and Levring's cast -- McTeer in particular -- run with it.
40
Austin Chronicle by Kimberley Jones
Either you like your movies to be, well, movie-like: imitations of life, with musical accompaniment and artificial lighting and tracking shots and looped dialogue; or you like them to be re-creations of life, sans the artifice. The King Is Alive clearly falls into the latter camp.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Janet McTeer displays Amazonian power while Jennifer Jason Leigh tears into her role as a high maintenance creature with a ferocity that leaves little room for her usual acting tics.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Paula Nechak
Isn't very pretty despite its extraordinary look. In fact, the film is downright queasy and unsettling.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It doesn't make the slightest effort to cater to conventional appetites. But the more you appreciate what they're trying to do, the more you like it.
75
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
To some, this will seem the height of aesthetic experimentation; to others, the most unendurable arty hogwash.