88
One former gymnast says, "The line between tough coaching and abuse gets blurred." This may be what it takes to win gold at the Olympics, but is it worth the cost?
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Screen Daily by Fionnuala Halligan
From the very beginning of Athlete A, Cohen and Shenk (Audrie & Daisy and An Inconvenient Sequel) visually confront the audience with the clear physical evidence that their documentary is about abused children and they never let that image fade away.
100
San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson
Athlete A gives us the story behind the story. It’s a terrific journalism movie, but it’s also a story of young women who persevered and found justice against the odds.
91
Through even-handed reporting and a series of emotional first-person accounts, Athlete A excavates one of modern sports’ most horrific abusers and systems. It doesn’t do that by being preachy or shrill, instead working from one key belief: It must have started somewhere. Hopefully, Athlete A can contribute to ending it for good.
80
The New York Times by Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
Cohen and Shenk amplify the voices of the survivors while recognizing that Nassar’s arrest doesn’t dissipate the pain or deep-rooted exploitation.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt
A measured if still-maddening look into the 2016 USA Gymnastics scandal.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
Packaged as a standalone film, this fascinating and sensitively handled accounting shines a light on the abuse scandal that was exposed by the Indianapolis Star's investigative reporting into USA Gymnastics (USAG).
80
Athlete A is a testament to their perseverance, and to the courage of all those who stood up in court to face the man who had violated their humanity. But it’s also a testament to the obsession that gave cover to their abuse — to a culture that wanted winners at any cost.
85
As with many of the other recent documentaries about abuse, it hits hard, making it difficult to watch without being both heartbroken and enraged by a system that, in the words of one gymnast, “would sacrifice our young to win.”
80
What’s striking about the film’s tone is its redemptive warmth. Though the details are chilling, it’s as if a cathartic space has been opened for these girls and their families to explain what they went through.