There's a captivating performance and a queasy ambience to the film that at least makes it a sober sort of hillbilly horror.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

Child of God toes the line between success and failure - but, ultimately, leans into success, and occasionally threatens to leap into it entirely.

| Original Score: B | Jun 23, 2016

Ultimately the movie's message is that community is sacred, all God's children should be cared for, and the destitute need a human net to save them from descent into madness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 13, 2016

... certainly not for all tastes, but as a raw and visceral portrait of sexual and social defiance, it conveys a powerful glimpse into backwoods desperation and survival instincts.

| Oct 31, 2014

With Child of God, Franco has come up with something distinctive that both captures the atmosphere of McCarthy's neo-Gothic universe and suggests a consolidation on the director's As I Lay Dying.

| Sep 15, 2014

James Franco should be hailed for taking a crack at such dense and unforgiving material, but the relentless grimness leaves you numb rather than enlightened.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 10, 2014

For obvious reasons too, it's a tough undertaking to endear sociopaths, serial killers and their ilk as something more, something human.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 7, 2014

This drama loses its momentum when it focuses too much on its mentally unstable main character and never builds a solid narrative around him.

| Original Score: 1.0/5 | Aug 5, 2014

Beautifully shot, well acted, and the score is lovely, but the film has nothing to say about the human degradation in which it wallows. If you're gonna make me smell dung for two hours, at least fertilize my lawn.

Full Review | Aug 3, 2014

An ambitious but uneven attempt to translate McCarthy's book to the screen.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 2, 2014

There's no denying Franco's ambition, and in "Child of God" you can see evidence (almost for the first time) that he's reaching for something he may one day attain.

| Aug 1, 2014

"Child of God" fascinates like a song sung just out of tune but rhythmically sturdy enough to keep you listening in the hopes it'll right itself.

| Aug 1, 2014

Surprisingly pretty good.

| Aug 1, 2014

If (and this is a big if) you can get past the breaking of taboos, Child of God is a deeply affecting look at loneliness, survival and the cracking of the line between civilization and savagery.

| Original Score: B | Aug 1, 2014

The physical experience of watching this no-frills movie is difficult.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2014

A good faith but blank retelling of McCarthy's first major statement.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 1, 2014

The Coens and John Hillcoat used McCarthy's novels as inroads and put their individual stamps on the material; Franco, meanwhile, contents himself with exploitation.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 1, 2014

This wrong-headed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's taut 1973 novel, as interpreted by director James Franco, spends too much time trying to create an element of compassion for this devilishly aberrant killer.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 31, 2014

Too bad all this grungy intimacy renders him neither knowable nor fascinating as he hunkers down in a shack and then in a cavern that doubles as a crypt.

| Original Score: D | Jul 31, 2014

Franco keeps you in your seat, mainly by harnessing the power of Haze ...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 31, 2014