While the plot is too light to sink your teeth into, the dreamlike, David Lynch-style imagery is engrossing.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Beguiling in its strangeness, yet also effortlessly evoking recognizable emotions such as loneliness and the feeling of being stuck in a dead-end town and life, this moody and gorgeous film is finally more about atmosphere and emotions than narrative -- and none the worse for it.
It's a new vampire classic, one to treasure endlessly.
To dismiss it as simply an act of hipster appropriation is to cop out, because appropriation is the film's thematic meat.
Shot in gorgeously expressionistic black-and-white and fusing multiple genres into a thoroughly original whole, Amirpour has crafted a beguiling, cryptic and often surprisingly funny look at personal desire that creeps up on you with the nimble powers of its supernatural focus.
It etches a sweet, sad and solemnly fatalistic love story between feeding times.
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
For much of the movie, nothing happens, and it’s not the rigorous, locked-in nothing of the long-take art film, but the slow-motion, music-montage nothing of the artsy American indie.
The plot’s tired blood is jumped up considerably by style; all in all, it's an intoxicating blend of eerie horror and ’80s pop, made by an artist to keep an eye on.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
In the end, this morphing of ideas and styles is more deadpan romantic than sociocritical, and sweeter for it.
The Dissolve by Tasha Robinson
The film sometimes seems to get lost in self-admiration and its own melancholy mood. Still, Amirpour maintains that mood exquisitely well.
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT is truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I was pleasantly surprised by its deadpan humor, and the minimalistic dialogue suits the setting and the film’s “Western” vibe well. As critics say, its style really stands out, but it’s unfair — and inaccurate — to label the film “without substance” when there’s so much propelling it forward. If you’re an attentive viewer, you’ll be rewarded for your time.