44
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranWhat results is an intimate, chatty film, both cheeky and thorough, the kind of high-class historical gossip you might get if an eminent Soviet historian like Robert Conquest or Richard Pipes went to work for the National Enquirer.
- 63New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThere's plenty of passion beneath this movie's unadorned surface.
- 60Film ThreatPhil HallFilm ThreatPhil HallIf Stalin's Wife doesn't provide solid answers, it nonetheless offers a fascinating tapestry of love, madness, politics, suspicions and jealousies.
- 60VarietyEddie CockrellVarietyEddie CockrellResults are solid, if stylistically unspectacular.
- 50Village VoiceMelissa AndersonVillage VoiceMelissa AndersonTsukerman is not interested in disproving or discounting theories, but merely assembling them.
- 50Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittThere's interesting material about Soviet history, but searching for answers about the revolutionary's spouse turns out to be less than engrossing.
- 50The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenA dense biographical collage.
- 50New York PostRussell Scott SmithNew York PostRussell Scott SmithUnless you're already into this stuff, it'll be hard to stay awake through the documentary, which was made on a low budget with technical values that are decidedly amateurish.
- 30The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThough serviceable as a primer on Soviet history under Stalin, the film's sloppy assemblage of dull interviews and stock footage never comes close to illuminating a life that the Russian people have long cherished as a precious enigma.
- 20L.A. WeeklyScott FoundasL.A. WeeklyScott FoundasShakily cobbled together from stock footage and new interviews with authors and family, Stalin’s Wife is nearly barbarous in its denial of aesthetic pleasure. The whole thing looks like a late-night-TV infomercial.