Jessica Barden gives a performance of great sensitivity and subtlety in Holler, an evocative depiction of the Sisyphus-like experience of poverty in a depressed economy.

| Jan 10, 2022

Holler is a gorgeously-textured exploration of the way ruthless corporatism trickles down through each layer of a country, and a system, until it falls on the shoulders of a young girl and obscures her future. Jessica Barden pens sonnets with her silence.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2021

Miss Barden is just wonderful in this movie, but so is everyone else.

| Jun 15, 2021

Honest, gritty, and thoughtful.

| Jun 15, 2021

Jessica Barden, Pamela Adlon and Gus Halper knock it out of the park with the girtty tale of escaping the trash heap of poverty for a better life. Kudos Nicole Reigel for sharing your heart!

| Jun 15, 2021

While the broad strokes of Nicole Riegel's story might sound familiar, "Holler" finds its power in the particularities, especially Jessica Barden's unfussy and wholly believable performance.

| Original Score: B+ | Jun 14, 2021

Barden's central performance is as tough and honest as the film calls for, and even if a closing riff feels slightly borrowed from "Good Will Hunting," "Holler" is a solid entry in the Midwest Desolation canon.

| Original Score: B | Jun 14, 2021

A modest classic -- hopefully the first of many from a major new voice in American cinema.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 11, 2021

An unflinching autobiographical work about what it takes to lift oneself out of this marginalized life.

| Jun 11, 2021

Holler is a compassionate film, and a worthwhile one, even if Riegel gets her points across bluntly.

| Jun 10, 2021

For all the scenes of desperate people doing desperate things in order to stave off literal starvation while working dead-end or downright criminal jobs, Riegel somehow manages to imply short, sharp shock of actual hope by film's end.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 10, 2021

Even the medium - Super 16-millimeter film, in the era of digital - adds to the ambience of rusting, abandoned machinery.

| Jun 10, 2021

The film's bleak outlook is leavened with a ray of hope, when she decides to take a road less travelled.

| Sep 21, 2020

A film that is heart-rattlingly poignant, haunting, and among the best of the year.

| Sep 14, 2020

[A]side from the scraggly forests and ominous smokestacks that writer-director Nicole Riegel films in gorgeous, grainy 16mm there's not much that's memorable about this story.

| Original Score: C+ | Sep 14, 2020

Holler is a compelling, confident film about family, loyalty, hope and self-care, executed with a firm directorial vision and speaking with an authenticity and genuineness that is unambiguously refreshing.

| Sep 13, 2020

Riegel seems to still be hung up on Winter's Bone, making a slavishly imitative film with few flourishes that allow it to stand on its own.

| Sep 11, 2020

The director has a secret weapon in Barden, who makes Ruth's story relatable, even to those who've been fortunate enough to avoid such hardship.

| Sep 9, 2020