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Native Son Reviews
At times quite visually stunning, but with tonal incongruities that make for a disjointed viewing experience.
| Sep 10, 2019
Nearly 80 years after Native Son was first published, we're still searching for answers.
| Apr 11, 2019
Native Son makes a number of changes to its source material, many of which dilute the story's power.
| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 6, 2019
Thanks in great part to the staying power of the source material, and the blistering work by Ashton Sanders and KiKi Layne, Native Son leaves a lasting imprint.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 5, 2019
Native Son is heartbreaking and painfully relevant, proving that in the nearly 80 years since Wright published his novel, little has changed.
| Original Score: B | Apr 5, 2019
The movie is at once struggling with what it wants to say, what it needs to say and what history has said before it, and its message becomes muddled in the process.
| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 5, 2019
Native Son vividly revives a seminal book, and once the movie and audience get their bearings, proves as thought-provoking as it is heartbreaking.
| Apr 4, 2019
An especially thoughtful film - that's already a given - but an unexpectedly inert one.
| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 3, 2019
Despite that unevenness, there's no denying that Johnson's film, with a script by Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan Lori-Parks, is an ambitious and arrestingly compelling work that packs a mighty punch.
| Apr 3, 2019
There were decisions made in this production--both in how the work has been updated and how it was not--that drain Native Son of the momentum it really needs.
| Feb 5, 2019
Native Son... is a fascinating, jagged, feature debut from visual artist Johnson.
| Feb 3, 2019
Rashid Johnson's adaptation of the seminal novel isn't perfect, but it enhances the story's themes with powerful filmmaking.
| Original Score: B- | Feb 1, 2019
Progresses in fits and starts; every time you feel like you've locked into it, it seems to slam on the brakes and veer off around the corner.
| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 30, 2019
Native Son successfully updates the story to 2019, begging the question: Is 2019 America so different than 1940?
| Jan 28, 2019
Sanders's... performance breathes new life into one of American literature's most heartbreaking and controversial characters.
| Jan 27, 2019
A problematic but keenly talented take on an imperishable text.
| Jan 26, 2019
Its flaws are easy to forgive as Johnson conjures up such an intoxicating atmosphere that both his imagery and Sanders' spellbinding performance will haunt you regardless.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 26, 2019
Sanders has an elusive kind of quicksilver presence; sometimes he's little boy, gentle and funny and kind; sometimes a grown man with nothing behind his eyes but rage or a hard blankness.
| Original Score: B | Jan 25, 2019
A gut-punch of a debut that examines race relations in America with unabashed force, Johnson's present-day interpretation proves, disgracefully, how pertinent Wright's text remains.
| Jan 25, 2019