Capturing the Friedmans 2003

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The year's most compelling cinematic conversation piece. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: Leo Tolstoy wrote that 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion,' but not even he could have invented the Friedmans. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: Engagingly evenhanded and intelligently assembled first feature. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What the Osbournes are to farce, the Friedmans are to tragicomedy. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A devastating and tragic tale of one suburban family's meltdown as played out on the 6 o'clock news and in private home videos. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This is finally a particularly naked and invasive form of voyeurism, The Real World for the PBS crowd. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: As an investigation into the psychology and processes of witch-hunts, Capturing the Friedmans is one of the most valuable film documents we've had since Carl Dreyer's 1943 Day of Wrath. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The MPAA doesn't have a rating for queasy-making and heartbreaking. If it did, then Capturing the Friedmans would carry an advisory. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Gripping, lacerating, moving, and tragic -- a work of documentary art. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Where so many 'reality' shows shrink a subject down to snug, humiliating form, Friedmans takes the opposite approach. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: A vividly personal, devastating story of a family that was hopelessly compromised years before it was scapegoated for crimes that two of its members may or may not have committed. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Jarecki has taken an impossible subject, and subjects, and made a movie that works as crime thriller, social document and, occasionally, surrealist comedy. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: By the end of this excellent film, you may find yourself admitting you know less about its subjects than when you started. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: This extraordinary film refracts truth through the prism of memory, until what you get is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, full of sacrifice and betrayal. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: This film is not to be missed, because it is so painfully and profoundly human. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: In the end, while Jarecki may not be able to answer our most basic questions about the guilt or innocence of the Friedmans, he makes a profound statement that, in situations like this, no one can be completely innocent and everyone is a victim. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Disturbing and haunting. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: Andrew Jarecki could have done more to lay out the marriage of sexual and religious and social hysteria that made cases like this possible. But he deserves credit for having the guts to say, in this case and in so many like it, who suffered the most. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: It leaves us puzzling, long after the film has ended, about the Friedmans' strange family dynamics, about the justice system and community that condemned them, about the elusive nature of 'truth.' Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: In some respects, Jarecki just scratches the surface of the material, and the film is often coy and withholding. Yet it's also riveting and so suggestive that you can't consume it passively: You have to brood on it. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A disquieting documentary about a disturbing incident. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: Disturbing, yet undeniably fascinating. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Without a doubt a disconcertingly engrossing, difficult-to-shake experience. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Not since Memento has a movie served up such a provocative mind-bender, and the Sundance winner by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki has the advantage of being true. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: A stirring examination of truth at odds with perception, the high price of privacy in the media era and the blinding veil of blood ties. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: It's difficult to imagine another doc having such extraordinary material at its disposal, or another filmed family being as spellbinding. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: An incredibly provocative, fascinating film that is about the way one eccentric family faced an intolerable crisis and the confounding wheels of justice. Read more