Unknown White Male: Critic Reviews

Unknown White Male is framed as a look at the mystery of identity, but there's a bizarre neutrality to the movie.

Rupert Murray's thought-stirring documentary recounts the bizarre saga of man who walked into a Coney Island hospital claiming not to know who he was.

Fake or not, Unknown White Male doesn't live up to its tantalizing potential.

The Unknown White Male that Murray has made asks profound questions. They're just not necessarily the right ones.

The mind-altered excitement is accentuated by the tripped-out quality of Murray's fragmented, rough-hewn style.

Bruce's condition seems so bizarre that, at times, you suspect it's a hoax. But the film still manages to raise disquieting issues of personality and identity.

Unknown White Male has moments you won't forget, appropriate praise for a documentary about amnesia.

Given that this retrograde memory loss has cleansed Doug Bruce's perceptions and made him an altogether more open and emotional person, Unknown White Male suggests that amnesia could be the ultimate chicken soup for the soul.

[An] intriguing and disturbing film.

Though problematic, repetitive and stylistically rough, the film raises intriguing questions, the most compelling of which is, does our memory determine who we are?

UWM is one thought-provoking piece of filmmaking, raising questions about the very essence of personality.

In the end, it fails to offer any insight into the philosophical question it poses.

It's a sad story without emotional impact, a fascinating subject treated in a mundane manner.

Rupert Murray's unsettling mystery-of-the-mind movie, Unknown White Male, posits the simple notion that we are the sum of our memories.

There are moments of joy that you and I can hardly imagine, and they're marvelously realized by both Murray's flashy, impressionistic direction and his insightful narration.

Rupert Murray's account represents fascinating viewing, and the richness of the subject matter more than makes up for the crudeness of some of the visual elements.

Bruce's story, and the way he lives it before our eyes in several incarnations, makes this an unexpectedly emotional, continually disconcerting film.

Whether the story is true or not does have a bearing on how good you think it is.

I found this unsettling story to be gripping.

Doug's story is endlessly fascinating, the sort of thing that leaves you thinking about it for days.