Kurt & Courtney 1998

Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune: We're left with only one credible impression of Courtney Love: That she is incredibly ambitious. What a shock! Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Unreliable and categorically unfriendly to Love though it is, Kurt & Courtney is thoroughly watchable in a bad car accident, trash TV kind of way. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: In the Kurt-and-Courtney relationship, Broomfield has gotten ahold of an engrossing subject. And he pretty much has what it takes to do it justice. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Kurt and Courtney is an entertaining swim through the muck of the rock underworld. But as journalism, it's an utterly sloppy piece of work. Read more

Patrick MacDonald, Seattle Times: You know little more about the subject when you leave the theater as when you came in. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Mr. Broomfield doesn't ultimately prove, or even believe, that Mr. Cobain died under incriminating circumstances. But he makes it wrenchingly clear why the world in which he lived had become impossible to bear. Read more

Michele Greppi, New York Post: It would be one mondo bizarro freak show but for the participation of some who clearly cared for the troubled young Cobain. Read more

Joshua Klein, AV Club: Love, in all her contradictory and confrontational glory, is far more compelling than any flimsy conspiracy theory. Read more

Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader: This patchwork portrait is hard to look away from, partly because it exposes how one man rationalizes the dirty job of being a documentary filmmaker. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Lurid and freakishly arresting. Read more

Daphne Merkin, New Yorker: The true circumstances of Cobain's death remain cloudy, but one comes away from the film unnerved by the distance travelled. Read more

David Bianculli, New York Daily News: We do get a strong sense that Love is a loose cannon with a short fuse. But in a freewheeling documentary about a drug-addled rock-star couple that hardly qualifies as a news flash. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: In all of Broomfield's films, you meet people you can hardly believe exist. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: When Kurt and Courtney veers into speculation and gives voice to bizarre and unreliable witnesses, it reeks of tabloid excess. Read more

Time Out: [A] funny, angry, provocative film. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: In the end, too, we've learned very little about Cobain's demons --- his alleged chronic stomach pains from stress, etc. --- or why he, and Nirvana, became so important to so many people Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Our culture has notoriously short attention spans and memories, but Kurt and Courtney goes a long way toward undoing the meticulous public relations campaign that Love has orchestrated in an effort to whitewash her tarnished image. Read more