59
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe result is a riveting portrait, one that doesn't quite dispel what's maddening about Dolezal.
- 80VarietyNick SchagerVarietyNick SchagerThe portrait it paints is sure to confound and infuriate in equal measure. Far from simply a snapshot of a discussion about race, Brownson’s documentary is a riveting account of self-sabotage, misplaced priorities, and obstinacy run amok.
- 75IndieWireKate ErblandIndieWireKate ErblandHow you view her and her lies is meant to say something about you. What it says about Dolezal is left more open to interpretation, as Brownson spends so much time close to her subject that it’s nearly impossible for the filmmaker and her work to not humanize her.
- 75The Associated PressMark KennedyThe Associated PressMark KennedyThe Rachel Divide is a fascinating, comprehensive and well-crafted documentary.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreIf you’ve made up your mind about her, it’s hard to see this intriguing documentary changing that made up mind. The movie turned my head, here and there. But the questions about her honesty linger, along with the notoriety.
- 60Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayLos Angeles TimesNoel MurrayThe Rachel Divide never quite cracks Dolezal's facade (if it even is a facade). But Brownson does move beyond the "think-piece" take on a real person — while also questioning whether she should.
- 50The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe New York TimesBen KenigsbergBasic sympathy is where the usefulness of The Rachel Divide ends. Ms. Brownson hasn’t figured out how to construct a movie around a figure who essentially owes her fame to the obfuscation of her past. Anything Ms. Dolezal says has to be taken with such a large grain of salt that it’s not clear why it’s worth listening.
- 50New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinEarly in The Rachel Divide, a commentator describes Dolezal as a Rorschach blot, and the movie is one, too. Some people think it’s a hatchet job, others that it gives its subject’s commitment to social justice too much credence. I found it pretty much down the middle.
- Brownson’s misguided and desperate attempts to humanize Dolezal only expose how deeply selfish and self-absorbed this woman is. There is something sick, twisted and insulting about America’s fixation with Rachel Dolezal and the way her lies have given her a platform, albeit a negative one, that most Black people don’t have.
- 20TheWrapDan CallahanTheWrapDan CallahanDolezal desperately tries to align herself with absurd terms like “trans racial” in order to try to find some way of making her way of life acceptable, but she always comes up short, and it is impossible to have any sympathy for her because she is so transparently a manipulator and a guilt-tripper.