An irresistible mix of insouciance and precocious maturity. Much of its charm lies in Tan's ironic irreverence as the film's narrator.

| Feb 21, 2020

What Tan has given us is an incredible, sui generis tribute to the international lingua franca of D.I.Y. cinempowerment.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 26, 2018

It's a charming, wistful movie, and I trust Tan will not have to wait another 20 years to direct her next film.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 7, 2018

The movie is many things at once.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 28, 2018

On one level, Shirkers is a memoir - a fond, self-deprecating mulling-over of Tan's crazy, inspired, partly embarrassing but furiously creative youth.

| Oct 30, 2018

Deeply personal, fabulously engrossing.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 29, 2018

Tan's doc is wide awake to her lost movie's resonance, as film meta-history ellipsis, as personal coming-of-age saga, and as "a time capsule of Singapore, both real and imagined".

| Original Score: 7 | Oct 29, 2018

Out of the ashes of the original Shirkers rose the documentary Shirkers, every bit as exceptional as its forebear sought to be.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 26, 2018

A movie that maintains its forward momentum all the while it's looking back.

| Oct 26, 2018

A knotty detective yarn, a funny valentine to Singapore and one of the year's most ardent expressions of movie love, it tells a story of cinematic theft, and in the process, becomes an entrancing feat of cinematic reclamation.

| Oct 26, 2018

A joyfully idiosyncratic memoir of a joyfully idiosyncratic-looking film and its maker.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 26, 2018

It sends you wondering at all the wild creativity and genius of young irrepressible women lost to time, held up or buried by the domineering egos of men.

| Oct 26, 2018

With fascinating bravery, Tan goes backward in time in order to move toward a rectified future, confronting the memory of her complex, near-inappropriate relationship with Cardona, both an enabler and a betrayer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 26, 2018

There is a sense of relief at the end of the documentary that feels like the first big breath of fresh air after stepping out of a therapist's office.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 26, 2018

What we - and Tan - come to find is that how the director describes or sees herself in the past doesn't always match up to her collaborators' opinions of the time; this is also a story about the stories we tell ourselves.

| Oct 25, 2018

A strange, warm and winding tale of movie love and knifing disappointment, nudged along by Tan's soft and pleasant narration.

| Oct 25, 2018

With Shirkers, Tan doesn't indulge in nostalgia, but rather evokes an un-calculated, offbeat sensibility that feels distant from our current algorithmic-driven culture.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 24, 2018

Sandi Tan's view of what the original Shirkers represented, and what her new film should be, proves surprisingly expansive.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 21, 2018

The viewer, more than the filmmaker herself, may lament where Tan's career might have gone. But she seems intent on moving forward - and this project may well be the vehicle for it.

| Mar 6, 2018

Tan presents her multifaceted life story-vibrant, unbelievable, and full of such incredible women-as a dazzling tapestry that's unlike many narrative or documentary films.

| Feb 6, 2018