33
Metascore
25 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterPart parable, part wild west shoot-out, yet totally original, Dear Wendy is a powerful indictment of American gun culture.
- 50Film ThreatFilm ThreatThe film is challenging and consistently interesting, but also trite and overbearing to the extent that it damages its message.
- 50L.A. WeeklyScott FoundasL.A. WeeklyScott FoundasStarts out as an inspired test case for the continued necessity of the Second Amendment, and only near the end does it lose some of its tightly concentrated focus.
- 50TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissVon Trier has a tendency to go overboard in his denunciations of American violence (Dogville). By contrast, Dear Wendy is a cogent, comprehensive take on the land and the films that obsess him.
- 40The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsIts mad rush to offer shallow takes on every Big American Issue would be offensive if it weren't so misguided. It's almost cute the way Dear Wendy thinks it knows what it's talking about and then just keeps going and going long after it's stopped making sense.
- 38Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertA tedious exercise in style, intended as a meditation on guns and violence in America but more of a meditation on itself, the kind of meditation that invites the mind to stray.
- 30Village VoiceJessica WinterVillage VoiceJessica WinterEspecially in the climactic, clumsily staged gunfight, the prevailing mode is wide-eyed idiocy--which might be the point, since von Trier's satirical target is the hypocrisy of (news flash!) America's eagerness to enforce stability and security with all guns blazing.
- 30VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyWell made but unlikable and dramatically absurd picture.
- 25Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneIt's a long slog, not because what the film says is provocative but because the technique is as slack as the writing.
- 10The New York TimesDana StevensThe New York TimesDana StevensThe story is laughably incoherent, which would be less bothersome if the movie were not also so unremittingly pretentious.