As we gallop into our 3rd week of release, the critics are still beckoning the audiences to come along for the DARK HORSE ride. We are happily eating their hay in Providence, RI, Chicago, Long Island, and of course New York City. If this keeps us I am going to run out of good horse puns… Check out what the crickets are chirping.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times : “Dark Horse” (3.5 of 4 Stars)
“Abe is the latest in a gallery of walking wounded populating the films of Todd Solondz, who has never met a character he didn’t dislike. And “Dark Horse” is another of his portraits of anguish in suburbia, joining “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Happiness.” There are times when it is dark humor, and then times when it is simply dark. But there is something more going on here, something deeper and more … hopeful?”
John Anderson, Newsday: “DARK HORSE Plays Irony Well”
“”Are you for real?” Miranda asks Abe, after his proposal has registered. “I mean, you’re not being ironic? Like performance art?” “Dark Horse” is certainly being ironic. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fully realized performance — or art, of a rather perverse variety.”
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: “DARK HORSE Director Finds Humanity In Unsympathetic Lead ” (3 of 4 Stars):
“In a compact, wittily humiliating 84 minutes, “Dark Horse” does a smart thing: It transforms from realism into a string of dreamscapes taking place in Abe’s imagination, involving the sex life of his fellow office worker (Donna Murphy, on the money) and other bittersweet fancies.”
Whitney Matheson, Pop Candy, USA Today: “With DARK HORSE, Solondz Issues Another Darkly Comic Tale”
” While it’s not the feel-good movie of the year, fans of the director wouldn’t expect such a thing. Solondz, however, does succeed in making thoughtful commentary on the fleeting nature of youth, and our desperate need to be loved.”
You can read more of our early critic love here.
UPDATE Sunday 6/24
Brett Harrison Davinger, California Literary Review: “Dark Horse Is A Contender”
“Dark Horse isn’t your typical man-child comedy. It’s something greater, more honest, and significantly more powerful.”
Hollywood Chicago: “Todd Solondz Brilliantly De-Constructs Man-Child Pathology“:
“Dark Horse” brilliantly deconstructs Abe’s “man-child” pathology, exposing the frailties within his good-natured façade and barley concealed rage.”
TimeOut Chicago:”4 out of 5 stars”
“Dark Horse insists you look past its caricatures and see human beings– it is the director’s tersest, most troubling study of desperation.”
“if Dark Horse was produced on stage rather than as an independent film, it would probably receive enormous acclaim, like Mike Nichols’ current rehash of Death of a Salesman or shows like Other Desert Cities and The Lyons. But Solondz’s film does what those plays don’t; he dramatizes the spectacle of Abe’s lack of self-consciousness, the moral perspective that contemporary culture drowns out.”
So says Armond White in City Arts in a great review of Todd Solondz’s DARK HORSE. Our screening tonight at the Film Society Of Lincoln Center is sold out, but there’s always are a few seats to be sold twice to the lucky few who show up empty-handed. The film opens in NYC on Friday at the Angelica. As wise as White is, there’s one thing in his review that may not be clear, DARK HORSE is still very much a comedy (as wise as it is too)>
