The cast is mostly comprised of non-professional actors, a fact that seems to give the film an air of authenticity.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

A New York movie as surprising and inventive in showing us the city through the eyes of a runaway boy as Morris Engel's Little Fugitive must have seemed to audiences in 1953.

| Aug 28, 2019

The sub working-class, Latino milieu shades more exotic than authentic, but the cast is terrific, the movie is extremely well-shot up close and personal.

| Feb 25, 2019

Reveals the breadth of human behavior and experience as one in which dysfunction is a matter of degree as much as the DSM-V.

| Original Score: 2.75/5 | Aug 31, 2018

Mariana and Ricky's stories develop separately but are solidly linked by a mother's love for her child.

| Original Score: B | Feb 16, 2015

...seems simple on the surface but it makes us think about so many things - the power of maternal love, the unique perspective of autism, the limited resources available to illegal immigrants, the isolation of a crowded urban city.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 10, 2015

Cinematographers Adam Jandrup and Ethan Palmer use a variety of thoughtful camera techniques like point of view, soft focus, lens flares, closeups and reflections to show how an autistic child might see his environment.

| Original Score: B | Dec 24, 2014

This is one of those movies that shakes you up with its muted tension, never reaching for effect, constantly leaving you damp with worry.

| Original Score: A | Aug 27, 2014

Each of the threads works on its own, but the combination becomes problematic.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 19, 2014

The director's view of the wider world is flat and schematic; the mother's dealings with an indifferent school district, the ineffectual police, and her aloof ex-husband lack complexity, and the maudlin tone overwhelms any social insight.

| Jul 17, 2014

Sam Fleischner's Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, shot guerilla-style, captures a rare, teeming intimacy while also invoking the real-life, larger disaster about to hit.

| Jul 16, 2014

As the boy alone is surrounded by noise and movement, impressions that are alternately thrilling and frightening, weird and familiar, so too his family sees their environment and each other in new ways.

| Original Score: 9/10 | May 27, 2014

This movie is an unmatched combination of an insider's view of the true, unvarnished underbelly of the largest city in America and a gritty essay on the nearly impossible task facing an undocumented Mexican family raising an autistic child.

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 27, 2014

A copy of it should be stored in a climate controlled vault, for the benefit of future generations who want to know what life in New York looked, sounded and felt like in in the early 21st century.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2014

Although it never holds much interest in emphasis, it's a striking, riveting feature that showcases Fleischner as a refreshingly observant talent.

| Original Score: A- | May 23, 2014

A film that demonstrates that there is hope for independent filmmaking in the USA. A humanist masterpiece that eschews market gimmicks like mumblecore or "edgy" sexual perversions.

| May 22, 2014

"Stand Clear of the Closing Doors," a small miracle of a film, captures the grass-roots swirl of New York City with an extraordinary sensory attuning to urban life.

| May 22, 2014

Finding a shape for this amassment of observations is a challenge Fleischner doesn't quite lick, but the overall effect is [...] autist's point of view that a more conventionally constructed film could never achieve.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 22, 2014

Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors stubbornly resists a sense of intimacy, the film determined to express how communication can always be inclusive, even in whispers.

| Original Score: B+ | May 22, 2014

Richly textured, fully engaging.

| May 21, 2014