Listening to the narration in the documentary and seeing the iconic photos and footage of significant turns of history, Didion’s analyses just as well could have applied to our world today... “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 9, 2023

Emphasises the writer's special combination of human fragility and literary stature.

| Feb 28, 2019

Trying to cover Joan Didion the person, the writer and the wife and mother in 95 minutes couldn't be anything but incomplete and broad.

| Jan 19, 2018

It's a ravishingly beautiful film despite the fact that it often delivers the unvarnished reality.

| Dec 20, 2017

The center has not held, but Joan Didion is still with us as of this writing. Cheers to that.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 17, 2017

How vital is Didion? Harrison Ford shows up to discuss being her carpenter in '70s Malibu, and all you want is to get back to Joan.

| Dec 14, 2017

Frequently, this splendid documentary about the great American writer resembles a love letter to its subject.

| Dec 1, 2017

Director Dunne continues in this family tradition here -- he respects Didion enough to let her decide how much she wants to reveal, and Didion trusts Dunne to get it right on the screen.

| Nov 30, 2017

[Joan Didion] is the center of this great documentary. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 27, 2017

If you're at all interested in Didion's life and work, those flashes are worth watching.

| Nov 10, 2017

You might almost think, if you've read her books, there isn't anything you don't already know. You'd be wrong.

| Nov 9, 2017

Repeated viewing tends to suggest some validity to Barbara Harrison's 1980 assessment that Didion's "subject is always herself" and her writing "sounds good" but "doesn't signify."

| Nov 9, 2017

Deeply affecting doc about great writer has mature themes.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 7, 2017

A portrait of essayist Joan Didion and her self-respect.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 3, 2017

Playing a close second in making the film (which is about 15 minutes longer than it needs to be) worth watching is the remarkable footage and photographs of Didion at home and at work.

| Original Score: 88/100 | Nov 3, 2017

A nephew and his famous aunt take us on an intriguing journey through the remarkable life and work of an iconic American writer.

| Nov 2, 2017

The Center Will Not Hold is instead a celebration of the thing that existed far before the internet came along: Joan, the person.

| Oct 30, 2017

The Center Will Not Hold has a brisk, no-frills pace and editing. Almost inadvertently, Griffin Dunne's film reveals Didion as an essentially conservative mind, someone who prized order, tradition, and power structures.

| Oct 30, 2017

Griffin Dunne's exemplary film has made me want to dive into Joan Didion's work; that's the highest compliment I could pay any documentary

| Oct 27, 2017

In any portrait of an artist, you ideally want to leave with something that feels raw or sacred. By the end of The Center Will Not Hold, one doesn't necessarily feel like they know Didion any better, or that she's loosened her grip on her public image.

| Oct 27, 2017