Critic Reviews

A film whose sense of urgency and purpose is utterly engrossing.

The Ghosts in Our Machine, a heartfelt meditation on animal rights, comes at you as a whisper. It depends on the persuasive powers of creatures great and small — in their natural habitat or in cages — to argue that we stop using them for food, clothing, research and entertainment.

The Ghosts in Our Machine is a compelling movie, but its argument expands without deepening.

Jo-Anne McArthur's cause draws sharp comparisons with the never-mentioned PETA, a seemingly insignificant omission that discloses a lingering problem of willful insularity.

Liz Marshall's Ghosts in Our Machine trades didacticism for first-person atmospherics.

Marshall's film does not only aim to document animal rights activism but also to propagate it, and in that it is less successful. This is a film overflowing with passion and compassion but often lacking the intellectual detachment necessary to distill conviction into a rigorous argument.

This off-putting pic requires open minds and iron nerves.