This is a thoughtful, knotty character study, albeit one nestled inside a polished, and less interesting, action thriller.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2021

It seems Marseilles's immigrant population, as with Knox herself, are treated as mere casualties in Stillwater's grand vision. If only that vision had some substance to it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 6, 2021

The quality of the acting makes it easy to overlook how increasingly leaden "Stillwater" becomes - but not easy enough.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 4, 2021

This is a man who has lost step with his times... but there is something touching about his earnest politeness and also something novel: when was the last time you saw a conservative blue-collar dad in a leading role?

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2021

It'd be more openly ridiculous, feel far more manipulative, if not for Damon's performance... [His] magic is in making a certain plainness, a near-anonymity, defiantly charismatic.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2021

McCarthy's excellent, if sprawling, script is more interested in the humans behind the headlines and the messy ways people try to reconcile their grief and guilt after indescribable trauma.

| Aug 2, 2021

Admirable for its convictions, restraint and complicated insights.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 2, 2021

Though the intrinsic likability that makes [Damon] a movie star may be doing half the heavy lifting, you want to invest in this blunt, difficult man.

| Original Score: B | Jul 31, 2021

This is a movie where I couldn't find my footing for a long time, but I found myself thinking about it a lot.

| Jul 31, 2021

Damon is quite good, withholding a lot of histrionics. I don't want to be self-contradictory, but it's a passively expressive performance.

| Jul 31, 2021

The one constant is Damon, who's turning out to be one of those great, casual American actors we didn't know we had anymore...

| Jul 30, 2021

Damon's versatile acting power onscreen overcomes the flaws of this provocative and stirring drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 30, 2021

"Stillwater" should be a deep investigation into a moral quandary, but it just ends up being shallow and irresponsible.

| Jul 30, 2021

McCarthy's film, cowritten with two French screenwriters, seems to want to comprehend and empathize with this flawed hero, but the last word appears to go with the French, who think Americans are stupid -- but good with their hands.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2021

Stillwater runs long but doesn't run particularly deep -- or at least, not quite deep enough.

| Jul 30, 2021

An enthralling, exasperating, and, above all else, ambitious affair that doesn't soften or demand sympathy for its difficult main character but does insist on according him his full humanity.

| Jul 30, 2021

Deftly explores... the cultural barriers that prevent us from achieving basic goals, such as solving a murder, and connecting with people unlike ourselves.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 30, 2021

To be fair, it has moments of keenly observed honesty, and the actors are fully believable. But its attempts to engage the viewer's emotions are forced and ineffectual.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 30, 2021

Ultimately, the cacophony of all these plot lines converging and the weight of the messaging being conveyed is almost too much to bear.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 30, 2021

Structurally and tonally, the third act is a challenge. But the longer I linger on it, the more I admire the risk taken by McCarthy.

| Original Score: A | Jul 30, 2021