Chelsea on the Rocks: Critic Reviews

An enraptured fantasia of high times at the hotel, the film is so intoxicated with the Chelsea's bohemian mystique it virtually consumes itself.

You may not learn much about the hotel itself from Chelsea on the Rocks, but you come away knowing exactly what it was like to live there.

Chelsea rambles -- and in a way that makes you want to move down the bar.

Ferrera's shaggy tone, which fits the iconic building, gets irritating. Still, if you come for the stories, you'll stay for the company.

A skittery, rambling but often absorbing portrait of the Chelsea Hotel.

Chelsea on the Rocks rambles a bit, but it's a real slice of New York history that includes everything from Ethan Hawke recounting a hilarious story about Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller at the hotel to footage of the 9/11 attacks...

Manhattan's storied hotel is the timely subject of this passionate tribute.

A creative community is as fragile an ecosystem as any salt marsh and just as easily destroyed: Chelsea on the Rocks celebrates a hotel which nurtured some of the greatest talents of the twentieth century.

There's a great movie to be made about the Chelsea Hotel; unfortunately, this isn't it.

It's a cheap, vicarious high to hear these unidentified denizens reminisce about the orgies and overdoses that seem to have been included with the rent.

Fond and funky elegy

Nostalgic and fun to talk about but not that much fun to listen to. At some point the dead will simply rest in peace.

A visually poetic, if erratically edited, portrait illustrating how "the energy of this hotel is bigger than the people in it."

This is Ferrara's first documentary since 1977, and it has the crackbrained air of menace and the ferocious humor that mark his fictional works.

Unfocused and uninteresting documentary about the famous hotel for bohemians of all stripes.

Often drags with poor editing and lack of sufficient insight while leaving you feeling unengaged and underwhelmed.

...Ferrara has left a testament to a beloved place whose spirit has been corrupted by commerce.

In need of a re-edit like few other films, Chelsea on the Rocks isn't so much bad as it is disappointing.

Ferrara found a way to adapt his ramshackle style to the documentary format, and his new Chelsea on the Rocks works spectacularly.

Ferrara himself is no stranger to substance abuse or self-destructive impulses, and he's perfectly in sync with the Chelsea's spirit.

It makes sense that, within his own act of remembrance, Ferrara would include a hotel tenant's home-movie footage of the September 11 attacks. The underlying message, in both cases, is the same: Never forget.

Not exactly art for art's sake, more like a case of film for historic preservation's sake!

Chelsea on the Rocks is very lively, somewhat thrown together in that loose yet aggressively visceral Ferrara style.

often inscrutable but still fresh and surprising

A warm and curiously engaging film despite many flaws and the sloppiness of its construction.