The Believer 2001

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: See it. Debate it. Remember it. Read more

Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe: An amazing and incendiary movie that dives straight into the rough waters of contradiction. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Easily the most thoughtful fictional examination of the root causes of anti-Semitism ever seen on screen. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Definitely worth seeing. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Bean's film concentrates almost entirely on the externals -- the bluster, the swagger -- when the story he is treating just begs for full, detailed, potentially explosive emotional and psychological scrutiny. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: One of the year's most thought-provoking, hard-hitting films, gutsily opening up a subject rarely done with this kind of all-out chutzpah. Read more

Julie Salamon, New York Times: This willfully provocative film portrait offers lots of raging, vulgarity and shock but little insight into the character's psychopathology. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Gosling, a onetime Mouseketeer, is a revelation in the role, containing and releasing Danny's inchoate emotions with surpassing dexterity. Read more

Misha Berson, Seattle Times: A somewhat crudely constructed but gripping, questing look at a person so racked with self-loathing, he becomes an enemy to his own race. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: In the title role, Ryan Gosling is electrifying and terrifyingly convincing, but key people around him are so inadequately drawn as to be unpersuasive. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: This fiery and imperfect feature shines as a demonstration of independent filmmaking at its most uncompromising. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: [Gosling's] combination of explosive physical energy and convincing intelligence helps create a complex, unpredictable character. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It's a raw, deeply felt portrait of self-loathing turned inside out. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: An exploration of what it means to be Jewish and what it means to hate - two separate subjects that happen to overlap in this case. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: A cinematic sucker punch. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Mr. Bean's diagnosis of Jewish self-hatred in The Believer may be misdirected in the present circumstances. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Ryan Gosling ... is at 22 a powerful young actor. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: A bad movie -- really a terrible movie -- with a daring idea behind it. Read more

Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle: Blessed with a searing lead performance by Ryan Gosling (Murder by Numbers), the movie is powerful and provocative. It's also built on a faulty premise, one it follows into melodrama and silliness. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: An important movie, a reminder of the power of film to move us and to make us examine our values. Read more

Time Out: No polemic, the movie puts our own religious sensibilities and prejudices to the test. The result is arresting, prickly, vaguely funny, even - 'difficult' in the best sense. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Those who see it will be struck by the adroitness with which it addresses touchy issues. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Fuller would surely have called this gutsy and at times exhilarating movie a great yarn. Read more