77
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenIt is a rich, beautifully organized and illustrated modern history of Eastern European Jewry examined through the life and work of the author, born Sholem Rabinovich in Pereyaslav (near Kiev) in 1859.
- 88Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsBoth the man and his times resist a compact 93 minutes. This much anguished history, and Aleichem's inspired literary response to that history, has difficulties being confined to conventional documentary feature length. Yet Dorman's touch is sure, his pacing fleet and his chorus of voices marvelous.
- 80Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesChicago ReaderJ.R. JonesThis absorbing PBS-style documentary by Joseph Dorman follows Aleichem from his early years in the Russian shtetl of Voronko through the pogroms that would drive the Jewish diaspora of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- 75Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerSlant MagazineAndrew SchenkerNot only sets up the writer's life as representative of the transitions of early modern Jewish life, but posits his oeuvre as an ongoing chronicle of the shift from a vibrant, unified Yiddish culture to a fractured world-in-exile.
- 75New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickOffers well-chosen selections from Aleichem's darkly humorous work.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChronicleWhat makes the movie succeed is that Dorman doesn't only focus on the life of Aleichem (who had a tendency to build fortunes and then lose them), but a look at a society long gone and the legacy and traditions they and Aleichem left to Jews around the world today.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThere are many scholars and critics here, most of them useful and pleasant, who obviously love him. Most remarkably, there is his granddaughter, Bel Kaufman, still looking terrific at 100, who had writing in her blood and wrote "Up the Down Staircase."
- 70VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibJoseph Dorman's intelligent if conventional bio-doc of Sholem Aleichem proves particularly revealing, since the famed, dandyish Yiddish writer led a life as full of colorful ironies as the motormouth schlemiels that populate his stories.
- 70Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanAdditional substance comes from Dorman's ongoing use of period photos and newsreel footage. In the spirit of the Sholem Aleichem oeuvre, Laughing in the Darkness is a collective family album.
- The author's texts are used as biographical inventory, and they're not simply read, they're performed, sometimes to the detriment of the prose.