It has all the nuance of a sharpie-scrawled slur on a locker. It's pacing is atrocious with scenes colliding together like drunken brunchers, without grace or intention.

| May 25, 2019

It's hear is absolutely in the right place... I wish I liked it more. I found the film itself was very clumsily told.

| Aug 28, 2018

It's good natured and well intentioned, but you end up wishing that Styler's directorial decisions were even half as bold as Billy's wardrobe.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2018

Cartoonish and clichd.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

It barely scratches the surface of the complex themes that it wants to explore.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 22, 2018

Lawther is subtle. The film? Not so much.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2018

The film itself lacks the daring of its own central character as it moves into the realm of feelgood high school fantasy.

| Jun 20, 2018

The movie is tiresome and supercilious almost all of the time, and Lawther's performance is directed with a heavy hand.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2018

"Freak Show" is a hot mess with good intentions.

| Original Score: C- | Jun 20, 2018

That all said, Billy's story still has power and could still be a comfort to those fighting their own battles against bullying, and there's real inspiration in his refusal to be anyone other than who he is.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2018

"Freak Show" is carried by a fully committed performance from Lawther, who quivers and swans and roars like the best of the Hollywood grand dames.

| Jun 20, 2018

Billy's schoolmates are either implausible (the jock who quotes Oscar Wilde) or one-dimensional (Abigail Breslin's Trump-ite cheerleader who insists 'all gays are going to hell'), though Laverne Cox lights up the screen with a fleeting cameo.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2018

Freak Show is fantastic, feel-good and fabulous - a hugely funny and entertaining movie packed with all the laughs and touching moments only that level of camp can deliver.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2018

Freak Show has more to say than initially meets the eye, the face hiding behind the false eyelashes, heavy foundation and glamorous makeup not all that different than our own.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 26, 2018

It's a Frankenstein's monster of teen comedies, lumbering from one clich to the next on its way to an inevitable conclusion.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 25, 2018

It is never boring, and its plea for inclusion, acceptance and tolerance over bullying in the confusing fabric of a changing society is laudable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 16, 2018

There are times when Freak Show seems like a high school film repurposed from other high school films, rather than an authentic vision of life outside Chlo Sevigny's hometown.

| Jan 11, 2018

Mr. Lawther is sympathetic and appealing as Billy, but Ms. Styler seems to mistake broad strokes for stylistic daring, and her colorful but diffuse movie never jells.

| Jan 11, 2018

Bitterly funny and warmly empathetic ...

| Jan 9, 2018

Styler's peppy but thin foray into feature direction is especially disappointing following her strong track record as a producer of more singular, stylistically confident indies ...

| Jan 1, 2018