“‘Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché’ is not a critical deconstruction of X-Ray Spex’s music, but enough time is spent and enough awesome performance footage is included to send newcomers in search of ‘Germfree Adolescents’ (1978) and more.”

| Jan 16, 2023

Poly Styrene: I Am A Clich manages to hold true to its overlapping perceptions of its subject, maintaining a well-balanced tension between the two that makes for fascinating viewing.

| Feb 25, 2022

If you know squat about punk music, if you've never heard of Poly Styrene, this biography holds little appeal beyond idle curiosity. If, however, the singer spoke loudly to your life as her fan, the film satisfies idol curiosity.

| Feb 18, 2022

I Am a Clich explores how the musician rose to fame and faced immense pressures from the press and music industry as an outspoken and in-your-face icon.

| Feb 13, 2022

The only quibble here is the repetition of the footage, but the film flows well, avoiding panegyric artificialities.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 12, 2022

Its important to keep her legacy alive, while at the same time recognizing that behind the iconic music and photos she was a real, flawed woman. Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliche does exactly that.

| Feb 11, 2022

While the film is on a crucial level about being a woman in a mans world, Bell...makes this story profoundly personal: Styrene wasnt just a great punk singer; she was somebodys mum.

| Original Score: 80/100 | Feb 11, 2022

A loving appreciation, but never a blinkered one, of the punk philosopher, a woman ahead of her time and still timely: iconoclastic, creative, ever-searching, a cultural observer who saw deep and far.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 7, 2022

...that intimate mother-daughter connection allows the documentary to reach places of profound personal reflection and tender confessional.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 6, 2022

The best footage is of the performer up on stage at some grotty club, wailing into a microphone with her band thrashing behind her, and her fans flailing in front. She looks the way punk rockers are never supposed to look. She looks happy.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 4, 2022

The doc’s perspective honors Poly Styrene by placing her within a cultural lineage.

| Feb 4, 2022

Whether or not youre a fan, this retrospective of her life and career has more depth and insight than the average documentary tribute.

| Feb 4, 2022

While mother and daughter reconcile, Poly Styrene: I Am A Clich feels like a deepening of that process. The film adds emotional resonance to a story about an exceptional human who sang her mind at a pivotal moment in 20th-century pop-culture history.

| Original Score: B-plus | Feb 4, 2022

A moving tribute to a mother from a daughter whos still grieving her tremendous loss.

| Feb 3, 2022

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche achieves an emotional dimension that a director who never knew Styrene would struggle to hit, and transcends her status as a punk icon to show a vulnerable, flawed woman who achieved so much.

| Feb 3, 2022

More than a journeyman rockumentary, “Poly Styrene” is a thoughtfully finessed filial reckoning: a daughter’s journey toward understanding her mother as a young artist and as a young woman of color.

| Feb 3, 2022

Unlike most music biographies that focus on the sex, drugs and rock n roll aspects of the story, this movie also weaves in the social history of Britain, mental health and fame, while maintaining a personal touch courtesy of Celeste Bell.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2022

While other punk female artists conformed to sexy, haughty and gutsy attitudes, Styrene cared more about the state of humanity and of the world at large.

| Feb 2, 2022

This is not a banal or mundane fake-objective music history doc: it's an almost real-time chronicle of a daughter coming to grips with a mother's legacy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 2, 2022

Goes beyond normal documentaries about musician's by adding an emotional heft not usually seen. A deep dive into an icon, a woman, and a mother.

| Feb 2, 2022