“Director Franco Rosso’s rough-and-tumble portrait of immigrant life in the slums of Thatcher’s England is having its belated American theatrical release both 39 years late and depressingly right on time. The gasp-inducing final shot hangs in the air deliberately unresolved, like the racist hatred and police brutality that plague our communities still.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/20/2019
“Assayas has got a lot of ideas about how living in a digital realm has altered our attitudes toward art and culture, and he crams just about all of them into the guise of a sly sex comedy. He’s couched at least three movies’ worth of complex concepts inside an old-fashioned bedroom farce. It’s like a TED Talk in which everybody’s screwing and I loved it.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/16/2019
“The movie’s best joke is that there’s not much idealism left here to be corrupted, with everyone seeming to agree that the paper’s glory days are long in the rearview. This deceptively breezy film is really a sneaky generational portrait of young radicals running out of steam in their thirties. It has a wistful, end-of-an-era vibe that time has only sweetened.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/15/2019
“Kahiu struggles a bit juggling the tonal shifts and bungles a central act of violence, but even her missteps have a scrappy quality I found endearing. Rafiki reminds me of those occasionally clumsy underdog indies from the ‘90s New Queer Cinema movement, like a Kenyan cousin to The Incredibly True Adventures Of Two Girls In Love.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/10/2019
“Moss is miraculous here in a performance that leaves her guts smeared all over the floor, allowing us to see the wounded little girl inside the monster that terrorized us and the emotional scaffolding that held up her rock star persona. There’s a moment when she tries on the act again for a bit of banter and it’s like watching someone wear an ill-fitting suit.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 05/01/2019
“The film follows Ocasio-Cortez and three other working women who challenged entrenched Democratic incumbents during the electoral sea change of 2018. It’s an inspirational portrait for anyone who believes a representative democracy should reflect its community and that politics isn’t just the province of wealthy old white guys.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/29/2019
“I often wonder how the picture would have played had it been released just one year later, after the 2016 election revealed what the extent to which these hatreds and divisions still smolder in our midst. Seen post-Charlottesville it’s alarming just how prescient this movie’s view of the past was regarding what our future was about to hold.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/25/2019
