Peter Keough

Tomatometer-approved critic

Publications: Anchorage Press, Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Chicago Reader

Critics' Group: Boston Society of Film Critics, National Society of Film Critics

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
3/4	100%	Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles (2019)	For those who might regard "Fiddler on the Roof" merely as just another warhorse musical and a favorite of dinner theater and high school drama societies, Max Lewkowicz's rowdy and informative "Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles" might change their minds. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 21, 2019
3/4	99%	One Child Nation (2019)	Wang hopes her film will serve to bear witness to the suffering of this shameful period, now being purged from the collective memory with "Nineteen Eighty-Four"-like efficiency. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 19, 2019
2/4	85%	Pavarotti (2019)	To learn more about that Pavarotti, and not the myth, we need a better documentary. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 30, 2019
3/4	94%	Ask Dr. Ruth (2019)	After counseling thousands, Dr. Ruth faces her own pain, which defies healing. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 26, 2019
3/4	83%	High Life (2019)	It ends like most lives, poised before inevitable death, buoyed by love and irrational hope. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 10, 2019
3/4	60%	Sunset (Napszállta) (2019)	Oblique, often beguiling, and portentously cryptic, the film offers no satisfying solution. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 3, 2019
3/4	94%	The Mustang (2019)	It is handsomely shot, affectingly acted, and narratively predictable. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 27, 2019
3.5/4	99%	Ash Is Purest White (2019)	A network of recurring motifs unifies these episodes, such as the gun, the trains, vast, unfinished construction projects, and a volcano which inspires the film's title. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 20, 2019
	No Score Yet	Turtle Odyssey (2018)	Though the images of ocean vistas and sea life are breathtaking, a critic might sniff at the film's anthropomorphism and manipulative, formulaic narrative. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 22, 2019
3.5/4	100%	2019 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Documentary (2019)	Each film, some more artful than others, offers a taut packet of upsetting emotions: anger, grief, outrage, and horror, with only tentative glimpses of hope. Why watch them? Because you must not look away. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 6, 2019
	61%	American Dharma (2019)	What Morris does do, though, is more cinematic. He intercuts some of his subject's claims with montages of headlines or media clips that contradict him. - Arts Fuse EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 24, 2019
3/4	86%	The Mystery of Picasso (Le mystère Picasso) (2000)	[T]his film demonstrates how an artwork made in time and from time can offer a glimpse into eternity. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 9, 2019
1.5/4	74%	Destroyer (2018)	Neither dense, distracting makeup nor confused, convoluted chronology can disguise the fact that Karyn Kusama's "Destroyer," scripted by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, is a mediocre mash-up of genre clichés. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 9, 2019
3/4	91%	Searching for Ingmar Bergman (Ingmar Bergman - Vermächtnis eines Jahrhundertgenies) (2018)	Peripatetic and provocative... - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 13, 2018
3/4	100%	Bathtubs Over Broadway (2018)	The deeper layers delve into the limitations of irony, and how a jaded, ironic point of view can turn into its opposite, an earnest ingenuousness. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 13, 2018
3/4	80%	At Eternity's Gate (2018)	Dafoe may be the best actor around for expressing an inner life in extremis. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 21, 2018
3.5/4	72%	The Happy Prince (2018)	The title of Oscar Wilde's fairy tale "The Happy Prince" was not his subtlest use of irony, but as seen in Rupert Everett's film that bears the same name, it was tragically apt. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 24, 2018
2.5/4	87%	Colette (2018)	Knightley... not only brings to life a woman discovering new desires and needs and finding the strength to act on them, but conveys the inner toil of the writer's creative process. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 27, 2018
	98%	Rodents of Unusual Size (2018)	Rodents of Unusual Size is also a look at how human folly can contribute to environmental disaster, but awareness and ingenuity can help bail us out. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 14, 2018
	58%	Calling All Earthlings (2018)	[A] brisk, sometimes glib documentary about Van Tassel and his followers. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 13, 2018
2.5/4	85%	The Captain (Der Hauptmann) (2018)	Though he belabors the obvious and sensationalizes the carnage and sadism, Schwentke is dealing with some relevant issues. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 6, 2018
	100%	Older Than Ireland (2016)	Fegan draws on the wealth of Irish beauty: fairyland landscapes, quaint interiors, gaily painted doors and windows and the people who live there. He puts these snapshots together with a puckish wit. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 1, 2018
	No Score Yet	Reunification (2015)	A layered documentary that is as much an inquiry into the nature of time and memory as it is an individual's diary. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 8, 2018
3/4	95%	Dark Money (2018)	Engrossing, lucid, and unsettling... - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2018
3/4	95%	Custody (Jusqu'à la garde) (2018)	Legrand in his feature debut shows laudable technical ability and discipline. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2018
2.5/4	63%	Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)	{Soldado] dithers away into subplots, including one that is ludicrously contrived and seems designed to continue the franchise. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 28, 2018
3/4	91%	Eating Animals (2018)	Though not as graphically powerful as other documentaries on similar subjects... the emphasis on the disastrous global impact of these practices is more disturbing. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2018
3/4	100%	Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993) (2018)	In this semi-autobiographical period piece, Simón achieves the rare feat of faithfully recreating the mysterious consciousness of a child. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 6, 2018
3.5/4	98%	Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018)	The filmmakers, like their subject, remain simple, candid, and guileless in their approach to powerful emotions and difficult truths. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 31, 2018
2/4	87%	Mountain (2018)	The fusion of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto with an aerial shot of two human specks crossing an infinite blue and white ice sheet might elevate your spirit, but only if Dafoe keeps still. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 25, 2018
2.5/4	58%	Always at the Carlyle (2018)	Though sometimes it seems like a promotional video, the film offers a glimpse into the vagaries of class, culture, celebrity, and social mores since the hotel was first established back in 1930. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 10, 2018
1.5/4	37%	Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle) (2018)	Gino and Bénédicte devolve from characters who determine their own destiny into ciphers who arouse more pity than sympathy. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 10, 2018
2.5/4	84%	Disobedience (2018)	Rachel Weisz's nuanced performance... overcomes the film's indecisive ending. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted May 3, 2018
1.5/4	53%	Godard Mon Amour (Le redoutable) (2018)	"Godard Mon Amour" is very much like a Woody Allen film, with Godard embodying Allen's negative traits of pretentiousness, neurosis, and misogyny without the redeeming virtue of humor. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 26, 2018
4/4	97%	The Rider (2018)	Zhao turns material that might have been treacly and simple-minded into an allegory of male identity...with the quality of myth. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 26, 2018
3/4	87%	Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2018)	Perhaps Fiennes's intent is to draw the viewer into the solipsistic intensity of what it is to be Grace Jones. It is a bracing experience, because she is hedonistic, exultant, funny, and fierce. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 19, 2018
3.5/4	96%	November (2018)	Sarnet elevates his Rabelaisian folktale into a tragedy illustrated by haunting, metaphorical imagery. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2018
3/4	100%	Pandas (2018)	"Pandas" does its subject justice and is a reminder of the importance of protecting endangered species and preserving the environment when these values have fallen from official favor. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2018
2.5/4	93%	Journey's End (2018)	Lugubrious and anticlimactic, inadequate testimonial to those slaughtered in this pointless battle, and the million more who would die before the war's end. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 5, 2018
3/4	77%	The China Hustle (2018)	At a time when financial regulations have been gutted, stock market indexes reel, and trade wars threaten, Jed Rothstein's slick and revealing documentary "The China Hustle" should only add to the anxiety and gloom. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 29, 2018
3/4	90%	Itzhak (2018)	If Alison Chernick's "Itzhak," a documentary about the great violinist Itzhak Perlman, had a musical tempo designation, it would probably be "A capriccio" (Italian for "following one's fancy"). - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 23, 2018
	96%	For Ahkeem (2017)	"For Ahkeem" ... reminds white audiences that it is not enough to agree that black lives matter, but that it is also necessary to try and understand how black lives are lived. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018
2.5/4	71%	Happy End (2017)	Beautifully photographed, well composed, but disappointingly superficial. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018
3/4	100%	Oh Lucy! (2018)	What makes Hirayanagi's iteration of this familiar theme appealing are the quirky characters, the nuanced performances, and the curious cultural topography of Tokyo. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 8, 2018
2.5/4	88%	Annihilation (2018)	Garland has a David Cronenberg-like flair for metastasized biology, unnatural mutations, and human nature in extremis. But in "Annihilation" he doesn't seem to have figured out what any of it means. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 22, 2018
3.5/4	100%	2018 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Documentary (2018)	These are issues that provoke reflection and discussion, but the individuals and their stories stir up empathy and emotion. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 7, 2018
3.5/4	92%	Thelma (2017)	The scary moments are there, but they take patience. And then they take you by surprise. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 18, 2018
3.5/4	98%	Dolores (2017)	[Peter Bratt] deftly edits together archival footage and interviews with Huerta's children, co-workers, collaborators, and Huerta herself. He backs it with a jazz and salsa soundtrack and tells the story with zest and clarity. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 28, 2017
3/4	91%	The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017)	[Kaurismäki's] pessimism, always mercurial, seems to have mellowed, and that makes this film both more pleasing and less powerful. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 7, 2017
2/4	84%	The Divine Order (Die göttliche Ordnung) (2017)	A film that follows the template of an audience-pleasing, timid fable of female empowerment. - Boston Globe EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 30, 2017