61
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80VarietyTomris LafflyVarietyTomris LafflyThe whole affair is vastly entertaining — and far from indecent or intimidating.
- 75Slant MagazinePat BrownSlant MagazinePat BrownThere’s a surprising sense of communal exchange between the male strippers and their fans in Gene Graham’s documentary.
- 75IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichRaw, empathetic, and so insistently humane that it plays like a fun 82-minute “fuck you” to the power structures of a country that wants to squeeze the life out of its poorest black environments, This One’s for the Ladies is at its best when it slows down and keys in to a small pocket of the culture where strippers and customers really can have co-equal standing in the community that brings them together.
- 70Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsVanity FairK. Austin CollinsThe documentary isn’t a masterwork of craft, but in the interviews, there’s always a glimpse of some broader story, be it the electric charisma of the women in the crowd, who are frankly just as fun to watch as the performers, if not more so, or the broader arcs of history and tradition.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshLos Angeles TimesKatie WalshA detailed and affable exploration of this world, This One’s for the Ladies is so unabashedly sex-positive you just might want to find the closest all-male revue.
- 67The A.V. ClubThe A.V. ClubGene Graham’s humanizing, scrappy, documentary portrait of the black men and women of exotic dancing offers more than mere titillation.
- 40TheWrapCandice FrederickTheWrapCandice FrederickBecause Graham fills This One’s for the Ladies with so many different dialogues that don’t always connect, he prevents it from offering concise, sociopolitical insight about race, class, and sexuality. As a result, the film comes off as pedestrian and ultimately has nothing really essential to say.
- 40The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe movie’s determination to make stripping mundane has a way of infecting the film. Even the dancing sequences, often shot in poor lighting as if on a smartphone camera, look perfunctory.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMost problematically, the film is simply atrocious on a technical level, featuring subpar cinematography (a generous term, in this case) and muddy sound that wouldn't pass muster on anything larger than a cellphone screen. If you 're going to put all of those magnificent bodies on display, we should at least be able to see them clearly.