SummaryA Japanese reality TV star left naked in a room for more than a year, tasked with filling out magazine sweepstakes to earn food and clothing.
Directed By:Clair Titley
Written By:Clair Titley
The Contestant
Metascore
Generally Favorable
67
User score
Generally Favorable
7.6
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
79% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
21% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
May 8, 2024
83
It might be considered admirable how firmly Titley sticks to the facts, rather than trying to draw out a moral from the entire situation. But it leaves the story feeling more like a quirky, isolated human-interest story than a watershed moment in the development of exploitative, stunt-driven reality television.
May 2, 2024
80
The Contestant is riveting, but it stops short of the type of analysis that would take it to the next level.
Mar 21, 2024
75
The Contestant wants you to be entertained and it wants you to feel bad about being entertained. It pretty much succeeds on both counts.
May 2, 2024
70
Titley consistently anchors her unfolding chronicle to the kind of backstage emotional truths often hidden from the audience, and in the process, she crafts something halfway between sensationalist exposé and intimate confessional — a remedy to reality TV based on its own format — co-authored by her subjects
May 1, 2024
67
Titley doesn’t mine for anything other than what’s already been explored elsewhere.
Nov 28, 2024
60
This is not guilt-free viewing, closer instead to a doomscrolling spiral into despondence.
Nov 26, 2024
40
It is genuinely mind-boggling, and yet this unsatisfying, naive and fundamentally uncritical documentary, despite careful modern-day interviews with the participants, doesn’t get to grips either with the story’s implications or with the story itself.
User score
Generally Favorable
80% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
20% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
May 5, 2024
8
Such a refreshing and wonderful story of triumphing over abuse. I love how this guy wins in the end. Not money or celebrity, but thru helping the very people who saw his torment as entertainment. He was so worried about shaming his family, but he ended up turning the whole thing around for himself and them. What a winner.
Production Company:
- Misfits Entertainment
Release Date:May 2, 2024
Duration:1 h 30 m
Rating:TV-MA
Tagline:The naked truth about the world's first reality star
Awards
British Independent Film Awards
• 2 Nominations
Camden International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
Miami Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
