The last 15 minutes of the movie have so many absurd things happening ... that Stray Dolls should have been named Stray Plot Holes.

| Jul 12, 2020

With strong performances by the young cast, and beautiful cinematography that skims the line between seedy and lurid, Stray Dolls is an intriguing crime drama with an important insight into a forgotten and left behind part of American society.

| May 4, 2020

Trump would gleefully cite Riz among his examples of immigrants who turn to crime in the U.S.

| Original Score: B | Apr 23, 2020

Geetanjali Thapa's captivating performance carries this taut, effective thriller across the finish line.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 15, 2020

Stray Dolls may not be destined to be the next American indie classic, but it's a powerful debut film with a stirring perspective on criminality and immigration.

| Original Score: B | Apr 13, 2020

Brilliantly composed, it finds beauty as well as ugliness in these desperate lives.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 13, 2020

A trip to the dark side of the American dream, where everybody uses illusions and delusions to survive in a grimy landscape where they have no real options.

| Apr 13, 2020

I think it's a mixed bag. There are times when it was intriguing... [But] the characters weren't terribly well developed.

| Apr 12, 2020

Every time you think you're [watching] a movie you've already seen a bunch of times, it takes a left turn. I rather enjoyed that about it.

| Apr 12, 2020

Sinha, in addition to emphasizing the harried bond of her feminine tag team drenched in decadent turmoil, shines a revealing spotlight on blue-collar working class drudgery in all its puddles of purgatory.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 11, 2020

With energy and audacity to spare, the titular characters are more compelling than the generic crime thriller they inhabit.

| Apr 11, 2020

"Stray Dolls" is like a Harmony Korine movie with all the fun and energy drained out of it. All that's left is the dour, mean-spirited stuff that gives Korine's work it's importance but alone doesn't make for good cinema.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 10, 2020

The downbeat, disenfranchised "dark side of the American dream" thing has been done to death in a thousand noirs, but "Stray Dolls" elbows just enough room for itself in that crowded category...

| Apr 10, 2020

Stray Dolls ... doesn't quite make the case that [these characters are] worthy of much sympathy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 10, 2020

"Stray Dolls" lacks some narrative momentum, as the characters drift from petty crime to petty crime and party to party. But the film has a remarkable sense of place...

| Apr 9, 2020

Despite its sense of dead-end desperation, "Stray Dolls" is made worthwhile by the richness of Shane Sigler's nighttime cinematography and the consistent empathy of its tone.

| Apr 9, 2020

A clever crime thriller pulls no punches but follows the thread of America's frayed social fabric.

| Apr 8, 2020

Were the bad guys, in the end, less central-casting and more mundane, Stray Dolls would be something like a neo-neorealist masterpiece. As it stands, it's a cathartic yawp announcing the arrival of a vibrant, raw voice in Sinha.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 20, 2019

While I will keep my eye on the filmmakers as they continue to hone and improve their craft, as they possess a substantial amount of potential, there isn't much in Stray Dolls that I can genuinely recommend.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 13, 2019

It feels like a crime film lasered on to a tale of a sheltered Indian girl, thrown into the chaotic world of American college. On one hand, the beats feel emotionally honest. On the other, it meanders without fully embracing its aesthetic transposition.

| Jun 25, 2019