Turn the River: Critic Reviews

MovieWeb: 0 reviews

63%

RottenTomatoes: 19 reviews

Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

34

Full Review » 4 years ago
Stephen Holden New York Times (Top Critic)

80

Turn the River is a finely observed portrait of a desperate working-class woman who refuses to play by ordinary rules.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Nick Pinkerton Village Voice (Top Critic)

The sense of storytelling intelligence is undeniable.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Elizabeth Weitzman New York Daily News (Top Critic)

40

It's not sharp or ironic, but drab and downbeat. Unfortunately, it's also going to feel utterly familiar to those who've seen their share of independent dramas in the last 15 years.
Full Review » 4 years ago
David Edelstein New York Magazine (Top Critic)

The movie has a mixture of edginess and melancholy that's beautifully sustained until the climax, when the tang of realism becomes the cudgel of melodrama.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Anthony Lane New Yorker (Top Critic)

Skip the coda to this movie, with its tiny upswing of hope, and remember the days at the tables, as dim and endless as nights, and the click of the dialogue.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Ronnie Scheib Variety (Top Critic)

[This] atmospheric pic positively vibrates with authenticity.
Full Review » 5 years ago
Kyle Smith New York Post (Top Critic)

38

Turn the River lacks almost everything Eigeman has as a performer: charisma, wit and snappy delivery.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Carina Chocano Los Angeles Times (Top Critic)

40

A well-acted, if not terribly well-crafted, character-driven drama without much in the way of a purpose.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Chad Greene Boxoffice Magazine

30

Hopefully, more moviegoers will catch a performance as promising as this Turn in another rack.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Peter Rainer Christian Science Monitor

59

Janssen, who reportedly did her own pool shooting, is [best] served in the scenes with Gulley, which are wrenching in a coolly understated way.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Amy Nicholson I.E. Weekly

34

We're left after this terse and anxious film knowing nothing more about the world than that Janssen looks cool bending over and glaring at the eight-ball
Full Review » 4 years ago
David Noh Film Journal International

A modest, grittily surfaced film that, while nothing earth-shaking, manages to hold your interest, despite its basic been-there/done-that premise.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Rafer Guzman Newsday

75

A small-scale but thoroughly engrossing drama full of strong performances and sharp dialogue.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Paul Brenner Filmcritic.com

80

captures the scant, fetid tone of broken down pool halls and cracked glass bars infested with third-rate hustlers and frat boys slumming for a hustle
Full Review » 4 years ago
David Fear Time Out New York

34

What Eigeman needs is a stronger sense of style and storytelling if he wants to elevate the material past the stock indie-miserabilism mark.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Matt Pais Metromix.com

60

No glamorized games here, just a bleak look at a bleak story of a woman trying to crawl her way up from a life of limited options.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine

63

It's a bumpy film, and though no one may see it, it's impossible to imagine it playing as gracefully, like its effectively open-ended finale, without Janssen's conviction to her role.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Nick Davis Nick's Flick Picks

59

Turn the River, sometimes like Kailey herself and sometimes not, has a laudable habit of pulling back at the right moments and proving its mettle in unexpected ways.
Full Review » 4 years ago