Critic Reviews
71
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
9(75%)
mixed
2(17%)
negative
1(8%)
Showing 12 Critic Reviews
All Reviews
All Reviews
Metascore
Metascore
100
Polanski brilliantly evokes an evil society’s almost supernatural ability to recognize weakness in others and to punish all that is good.
88
Terrifying and darkly funny. [13 Jun 2004, p.C4]
83
The film’s thesis isn’t as clear as his earlier efforts, but it’s still a highly effective story about how the world’s insanity poisons the mind.
80
it may be the director's quintessential movie. It's an exercise in urban paranoia and mental disintegration that echoes or anticipates everything from "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby" to "Bitter Moon" and "The Pianist."
80
The film is superbly acted by Mr. Polanski, Mr. Douglas and Miss Winters, who might not be entirely convincing as a Parisian concierge in a realistic film, but who fits into this nightmare perfectly.
80
A disturbing and poignant anthology of Roman Polanski's favourite, oppressive themes.
75
Technically, The Tenant is superb, with stunning camerawork by Sven Nykvist, an eerie score by Philippe Sarde, and thoroughly convincing performances from the entire cast. (Review of original release)
75
Though the result is too slow and curious, with a weak lead performance by the writer-director, The Tenant's tone of abstracted anxiety is distinctive, and its central message, that the obnoxious define the world for everyone else, provides another tile in Polanski's career mosaic of paranoia and power brokerage.
70
The end result is somewhere between Franz Kafka and William Castle, but still worth seeing.
60
A tale of a paranoid breakdown of a little bureaucratic clerk that wastes no time in trying to be clinical. It has a humorous tang, underlying the macabre. (Review of original release)
