Variety
This adventurous seriocomedy has enough surprising elements and off-kilter humor to keep one intrigued, even if the payoff is debatable.
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Black Bear
Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West) leads this oddball drama as an actor-turned-director stuck in a creative glut. When she's joined by a couple at a rural retreat, her inner demons surface in unexpected ways. Co-stars Sarah Gadon (True Detective) and Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (It Comes at Night, TV's Girls).
2020106 minsUSA
ComedyDrama
- Director:
- Lawrence Michael Levine ('Wild Canaries', 'Gabi on the Roof in July')
- Writer:
- Lawrence Michael Levine
- Cast:
- Aubrey PlazaChristopher AbbottSarah GadonLindsay Burdge
Black Bear | Reviews
Filmmaking, manipulation, infidelity and trippiness collide in this mind-bending drama led by a superb Aubrey Plaza (playing against snarky comic type).
89%152 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® Score
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Hollywood Reporter
A slippery psychological drama that starts out talky and perhaps intentionally distancing but becomes retroactively gripping once its big switch is revealed, this is a darkly playful deconstruction of the indie filmmaking process that digs into the artist-muse dynamic and the power structures in relationships, constantly teasing the viewer as to what's real and what's part of the writer character's imagination.
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Film Threat
Throughout clever turns and twists of the plot, Levine presents a meditation and deconstruction on life imitating art and vice versa with a dash of Robert Altman and a nod to David Mamet as players fill in the story.
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A.V. Club
It’s often scathingly funny—a dark comic millennial spin on the Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? template, buoyed by three expertly modulated performances and acidic bon mots.
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IndieWire
As Levine unravels clever jabs and jibes at current culture — few recent features have so smartly picked apart both feminism and caveman culture with such insight and humor — tenuous bonds break down.
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Entertainment Weekly
It’s brainy, sure, but the emotional experience is what’s most vivid. The plot beats may confound you, but the feelings behind them are crystal-clear.
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