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Lisa Kennedy
Tomatometer-approved critic
https://www.lisakennedywriter.com/
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Sing Sing (2023) |
It uplifts and gently shatters. It makes a case for the deep respect and deeper amity forged in a theater program set up at the eponymous maximum-security facility. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 11, 2024
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Brats (2024) |
The film’s through-line of woundedness is by turns touching, irritating and occasionally illuminating. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 13, 2024
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The Young Wife (2023) |
Warm hearts and cooling feet is nothing new for movies, of course, but Kiersey Clemons’ portrayal of Celestina -- her head spinning -- raises the stakes of love and liberty. - Variety
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| Posted Jun 04, 2024
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Backspot (2023) |
Its early execution strains and wobbles some, but “Backspot” sticks its landing. - New York Times
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| Posted May 31, 2024
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Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara (2023) |
The director, Marco Bellocchio, anchors the period with a somber visual elegance and employs surreal gestures to tease out the psychological and spiritual aspects of the tragedy. - New York Times
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| Posted May 24, 2024
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Aisha (2022) |
“Aisha” resists tidy answers through the gentle force of its performances and by staying on the rebuffs and uncertainty Aisha suffers. - New York Times
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| Posted May 09, 2024
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Stress Positions (2024) |
If some of the points seem muddy, the filmmaking is expressive and deliberate. With shimmer, shadow and verve, “Stress Positions” captures the often hallucinatory pandemonium wrought by that “long-ago” moment. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Chicken for Linda! (2023) |
For all its playful color-block hues and deceptively casual illustrations, the movie delivers a sharp mix of pathos and humor. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 04, 2024
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The Listener (2022) |
Buscemi and Thompson utilize the complementary power of stillness and the close-up to create a portrait of a woman who hears so much and divulges so little. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 01, 2024
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French Girl (2024) |
For every inventive or simply satisfying rom-com, there are dozens of clumsy, rote ones — “French Girl” falls among the latter. - Variety
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| Posted Mar 14, 2024
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Mea Culpa (2024) |
Is creating a guilty pleasure something a director can — or even should — aim for? That’s one of the questions wafting over the writer-director Tyler Perry’s willfully steamy thriller “Mea Culpa.” - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 23, 2024
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Here (2023) |
[A] painstakingly muted, luminously photographed testimony to connection... - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 08, 2024
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As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial (2024) |
Not unlike its subject, the documentary’s power, beauty and complexity lie in Harper’s use of rhetoric and lyricism. - Variety
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| Posted Jan 28, 2024
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Igualada (2024) |
Rousing and intimate, making for an often moving, sometimes nerve-wracking ride. - Variety
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| Posted Jan 28, 2024
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Suncoast (2024) |
An amiable ensemble effort, with two sturdy lead performances, “Suncoast” is reminiscent of the minor-key, quirky-charming ’90s dramedies so often discovered by the Sundance Film Festival. - Variety
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| Posted Jan 25, 2024
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Daughters (2024) |
The film is rife with visually lyrical moments that connect viewers with the young ones’ sorrows, fears, insights and hopes. - Variety
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| Posted Jan 24, 2024
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Girls State (2024) |
How some of the young leaders in “Girls State” not only handle but also leverage their disappointments provides one of the documentary’s richest lessons. - Variety
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| Posted Jan 21, 2024
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Which Brings Me to You (2023) |
“Which Brings Me to You” is cleverly structured but often feels too crowded with the ghosts of lovers past. Then again, isn’t that the way with some of the most promising love affairs? - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 18, 2024
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Inshallah a Boy (2023) |
Hawa, a Palestinian actress, is commanding as a woman whose future and faith are buffeted by her narrowing options. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 11, 2024
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South to Black Power (2023) |
In a nice bit of journalistic even-handedness, several of Blow’s interviewees are not entirely convinced by his thesis, or they believe there are other paths to political gains. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 30, 2023
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Stamped From the Beginning (2023) |
In addition to interviews and archival images, film clips and news footage, Williams (“Cassandro” “Life, Animated”) leans into animation. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 20, 2023
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Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later (2023) |
The sequel provides an ever-maturing understanding of the tension between labels and identities, between a changing self, an expanding queer “community” and the broader society. - Variety
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| Posted Nov 17, 2023
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The Lady Bird Diaries (2023) |
Many of the archival images Porter so fluidly employs will be familiar, but they gain fresh energy and timely urgency from Johnson’s absorbing narration and her often stirring observations... - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 14, 2023
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This Much We Know (2022) |
As eloquent as it is, “This Much We Know” may also be exploitative. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 09, 2023
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All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023) |
Exquisite use of close-ups, fluid editing and a deeply observant sound design renders Mack’s story tactile but also poetic, making plain that the salt here is the stuff of tears, the stuff of sorrows and of joys. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 02, 2023
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Deep Rising (2023) |
The footage of iridescent creatures with billowing tentacles or translucent bodies mesmerizes but it also creates contemplative pauses amid the documentary’s facts, interviews and the damning history of the mining industry. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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Another Body (2023) |
[It] raises its own ethical questions — ones that, even with the filmmakers’ compassion and transparency, “Another Body” doesn’t quite resolve. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 19, 2023
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She Came to Me (2023) |
Amid the roiling neuroses of the adults, the young beloveds provide the film with a surprising emotional ballast. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 05, 2023
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Silver Dollar Road (2023) |
[A] riling — but not without joy — documentary. - Variety
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| Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Paul Robeson: I'm a Negro. I'm an American. (1990) |
The athlete-performer-activist’s achievements are well known (gridiron great, Columbia University Law graduate, first Black Othello on Broadway), but in this film, their roots and meaning go mostly unexplored. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 21, 2023
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Invisible Beauty (2023) |
“Invisible Beauty,” will likely make you hungry for Hardison’s book. But in a twist, one might wonder, can it be as good as the movie? - Variety
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| Posted Sep 15, 2023
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The Inventor (2023) |
“The Inventor” is rife with somewhat didactic lessons — about power, innovation, curiosity — yet a presumably unintended one might be that lessons themselves, however insightful, are not always captivating. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 14, 2023
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Sound of the Police (2023) |
If you need a refresher on what “systemic” looks like, these thinkers offer it. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 10, 2023
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Our Body (2023) |
Simon’s belief in the interconnectedness yet singularity of the varied patients is palpable. She rewards our patience with a deeper understanding of our bodies and ourselves. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 03, 2023
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The Unknown Country (2022) |
The film’s gentle detours into the real-life stories remind us that it is the people met on the road that so often make the trip memorable. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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The Miracle Club (2023) |
The filmmakers go for too-easy laughs; the movie doesn’t seem to trust its audience to sit with the pain, much less to find the achy humor in it, as a more assured film might. The actors here are good, but they are not miracle workers. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 13, 2023
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I'll Show You Mine (2022) |
It’s a good thing that Jagannathan and Brown have training in the theater: They imbue Priya and Nic’s densely verbal jousts, dodges and truths with compelling chiaroscuro hues. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 22, 2023
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The Perfect Find (2023) |
[A] visually vibrant, cinema-loving, if not quite perfect, rom-com... - Variety
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| Posted Jun 20, 2023
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The Blackening (2022) |
Comes with a horror movie’s requisite skittish and stalking camerawork, its creaks and breath-holding hushes, its gore and payback. But it is the friends’ flee, fight, freeze — or throw under the bus — banter that makes the film provocative fun. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 15, 2023
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Flamin' Hot (2023) |
Directed with affectionate brio by the actor Eva Longoria. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 08, 2023
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After Sherman (2021) |
A quietly plaintive score by the composer Tamar-kali provides rooted resonance to this investigative and intimate work of belonging. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 01, 2023
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White Balls on Walls (2022) |
With access to behind-the-scenes processes, the documentary can be instructive about the work of changing legacy institutions, but also wincingly cautionary... - New York Times
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| Posted May 25, 2023
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The Mother (2023) |
One of the film’s guilty pleasures becomes anticipating when a mansplainer will get hushed. - New York Times
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| Posted May 12, 2023
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Black Barbie (2023) |
Davis makes a jam-packed argument that the road to Barbie diversity and inclusion has been long and marked by detours, intersections and, maybe a dead end or two. - Variety
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| Posted May 02, 2023
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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023) |
Offers lessons in how a cherished object, when treated with tender and thoughtful regard, needn’t turn precious. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 27, 2023
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Chevalier (2022) |
A film that bows to “Bridgerton,” while lacing its intrigue with contemporary racial-cultural wounds. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 20, 2023
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022) |
A viewer should consider herself primed for a droll and cheeky evening. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 13, 2023
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Alan Pakula: Going for Truth (2019) |
Pakula’s work with actors or the resurgent meaning of his trilogy could have been documentaries unto themselves. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 06, 2023
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Spinning Gold (2023) |
Bogart’s creative affinity for artists, for his collaborators, gets muffled by the spin of the movie, which tries to make him a singular legend. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 30, 2023
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Story Ave (2023) |
In a quiet and compassionate supporting performance, Luis Guzmán proves a beacon for a young graffiti artist — and for this debut feature from Aristotle Torres. - Variety
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| Posted Mar 29, 2023
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