Critic Reviews

• Jessica Reaves, Chicago Tribune

  Despite the occasional flash of insight, and a few semi-shocking factoids, most women are going to find this movie roughly as illuminating as a remedial math class might be for a Nobel-prize winning physicist.

• Leba Hertz, San Francisco Chronicle

  In the documentary America the Beautiful, Roberts explores the cult of beauty in the United States and mostly succeeds in unmasking the flaws of fetishizing skin-deep beauty.

• Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

  With so many pointless detours ripping you away, the film feels as lamely digressive as the proverbial one-track guy whose head won't stop turning as each new temptation walks by.

• Reece Pendleton, Chicago Reader

  Unexpectedly witty and affecting.

• Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

  America the Beautiful provides plenty of food for thought, and Roberts' passion for the subject shines through.

• V.A. Musetto, New York Post

  Interesting but messy.

• Melissa Camacho, Common Sense Media

  Probing docu about society's obsession with looks.

• Jennifer Merin, About.com

  America's obsession with beauty is the subject of filmmaker Darryl Roberts wide-ranging investigative documentary that shows how beauty product manufacturers manipulate the public.

• Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

  The film's examination of our beauty-obsessed culture--however familiar--remains unfortunately necessary.

• Kathy Flanigan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  [Director] Roberts has a point of view, yes, but he also has a curiosity that drives him and the movie. Lucky are those who go along for the ride.

• Nathan Rabin, AV Club

  Perhaps in future exposes Roberts will uncover that ice is cold and furnaces hot.

• Andrea Chase, Killer Movie Reviews

  trenchant but not mean-spirited and often hilarious. Roberts approaches the subject with an attitude that is genuinely inquisitive, often bemused, and sometimes shocked, but never judgmental, at least not in his interviewing style

• Jules Brenner, Cinema Signals

  Intercutting the costs of American women's chase-after-beauty story (suggesting much waste and futility) with Gerren's personal one never quite blends into an organic whole.

• Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

  Roberts raises interesting questions, but most of the info is familiar and there's no systematic or comparative perspective to illuminate our culture's obssession with beauty vis-a-vis other wealthy media-saturated countries, which made Sicko a good docu

• Bill White, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  Unlike other documentarians who put themselves in front of the camera, Roberts is an affable screen presence.

• John P. McCarthy, Boxoffice Magazine

  Well intentioned but futilely diffuse.

• Nick Schager, Cinematical

  For every unsubtle moment ... there are two or three that forcefully resound.

• Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

  A hard-hitting documentary about the negative fallout from America's obsession with physical perfection.

Read all 18 critic reviews