Film critic Pauline Kael might have hated the first eight minutes or so of Rob Garver’s “What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael,” a fawning introduction to the life and times of the author and cultural icon. Or, she might have adored it. Halfway through Garver’s film, one of Kael’s own contemporaries laments that sometimes the former New Yorker critic would sit down for a film that seemed tailor-made for her sensibilities, only to lambast it later.
No matter how Kael might have felt about the doc’s opening minutes, she would have at least stuck around to see the whole thing through, and other audiences will benefit from the same. Despite that iffy start, Garver’s film blossoms into something more comprehensive than complimentary, a film that doesn’t balk at the trickier aspects of Kael’s career, even as it never fully engages with the tensions that informed her.
No matter how Kael might have felt about the doc’s opening minutes, she would have at least stuck around to see the whole thing through, and other audiences will benefit from the same. Despite that iffy start, Garver’s film blossoms into something more comprehensive than complimentary, a film that doesn’t balk at the trickier aspects of Kael’s career, even as it never fully engages with the tensions that informed her.
- 11/16/2018
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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