66
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83Portland OregonianMarc MohanPortland OregonianMarc MohanManages to excavate enough universal pathos from the mundane to find something truly extraordinary in the ordinary.
- 75New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithOctober Country doesn't really have a point, or a story, but it's an almost unbearably vivid portrait of four generations in a single working-class family.
- 70The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottOctober Country feels at once personal and objective, a fascinating hybrid of two important tendencies in the modern documentary.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasA beautiful evocation of a time and place -- Mohawk Valley in upstate New York, spanning from one Halloween to the next -- and a loving but unflinching probing of the lives of Mosher's family in the course of a year.
- 67The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayIn digging deeper into the stories behind the junk--many of which involve the drug problems, legal problems, custody battles, cycles of abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorders of Mosher’s own family--October Country veers awfully close to exploitation.
- 60Boxoffice MagazineMark KeizerBoxoffice MagazineMark KeizerWith the nation’s unemployment rate hovering around 10% and home foreclosure numbers stubbornly high, Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s haunting documentary of multigenerational troubles is either a case of great timing or, possibly, the worst timing ever.
- 60Village VoiceVillage VoiceBest understood as a work of creative nonfiction. The directors employ art-film techniques to aestheticize a swamp of big issues--the military, poverty, madness, family planning, spousal and child abuse--and give a family's (and America's) angst a clear voice and seductive form without leveling judgment.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckFamily dysfunction has proved a rich resource for documentary filmmakers in recent years, but "October" lacks the narrative drive and emotional resonance of such examples of the genre as "Tarnation" and "Capturing the Friedmans."
- 30VarietyVarietyA feel-bad film through and through. Chronicling a year in the life of a low-income Mohawk Valley family beset by external hardships and shockingly bad decision-making, the docu straddles the line between unflinching intimacy and invasive exploitation.