62
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
11(65%)
mixed
6(35%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 17 Critic Reviews
80
Congratulations to Robb Moss for making such a crowd-pleaser. But more importantly, congratulations to Moss for having such interesting friends.
80
Other documentaries have crisscrossed between time frames, but Moss' beguiling The Same River Twice represents one of the most effective uses of the device.
75
Intimate, quietly illuminating documentary.
75
The title of Robb Moss' documentary, The Same River Twice, draws directly from Greek philosopher Heraclitus' claim that "It is impossible to step in the same river twice."
70
Has the built-in curiosity value of watching real people evolve on camera -- a fascination increased by subjects' original, variably sustained commitment to countercultural ideals.
70
A piercingly poignant then-and-now portrait of five friends.
70
Moss offers few startling revelations, but gently gets at the truth of his subjects' lives by playing the past against the present.
70
If you can get past the "Big Chill" setup, there is a fine piece of moviemaking here.
By Philip Kennicott
FULL REVIEW 70
Moss has an acute feeling for structure and juxtaposition and for the quality and sensibility of his friends.
70
Far from an arthritic exercise in hippie nostalgia. There is a seasoned richness and vivid specificity to these lives, for all their hurts and losses. Yet the movie is shot through with an undeniable note of elegiac wistfulness.
