Hannah Arendt 2012

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: A film that ultimately says more about banality than evil. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: My only real problem with "Hannah Arendt" is that it's not a mini-series. Read more

Nick Schager, AV Club: A mildly intriguing drama of the often unavoidable and contentious intersection of intellectual analysis and personal prejudices. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Barbara Sukowa delivers a beautifully modulated performance, showing the rigor of Arendt's thought and convictions while revealing the contours of a passionate woman with complex relationships. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: [Barbara Sukowa] invests Arendt with a steely fury, but the film, set during and after the 1961 trial of ex--Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, has an entertaining cocktail-banter superficiality. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: Barbara Sukowa's performance in the title role is the kind that reverberates long after the screen goes black. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: Sukowa, who is very appealing in some personal moments in the film, makes Arendt strong in a cool, logical, but humanly unrealistic position. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Mixed bag, fascinating in its treatment of the Eichmann case, but stilted in its treatment of Arendt and her coterie. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Von Trotta includes actual footage of Eichmann's trial, simultaneously trivializing it and diminishing the rest of the movie to the vanishing point. Read more

Miriam Bale, New York Daily News: It's the actual courtroom footage that's the most effectively deep and ambiguous thing in this well-crafted but static biopic. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: It's involving, as biopics go, but the shattering debates that still swirl around Arendt's view of the Holocaust are relegated to walk-ons. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Hannah Arendt is hagiography of the most egregious kind. It makes Lincoln look like a smear job. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Once we get to the Eichmann trial and its aftermath, it's mesmerizing. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Balanced portrayal, makes a persuasive case that Arendt was a valuable voice, whose dedicated work in trying to unravel the causes of Europe's moral collapse was worthy of study and consideration. Read more

Spencer Doar, Minneapolis Star Tribune: [A] moving examination of the limits of human understanding when confronted with evil. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: In an era of sleepwalking surrender, "Hannah Arendt" is a welcome wake-up call, a ringing reminder that warring forces first assemble on the battlefield of conscience. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Like A Hidden Method, David Cronenberg's drama about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Hannah Arendt takes seriously the life of the mind. Read more

J. Hoberman, Tablet: Hannah Arendt is ultimately a pleasure, because Sukowa plays the most forbidding of intellectuals as a fabulous, passionate doll. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Time Out: Being accused of rationalizing the Third Reich and disowned by Zionist friends doesn't provide a lot of drama, but the relentless focus on figuring out how we are to think about the Final Solution can be compelling. Read more

Marsha McCreadie, Village Voice: The writer-philosopher Hannah Arendt is brought to life by a mesmerizing Barbara Sukowa in Margarethe von Trotta's film. Read more