64
Metascore
16 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80Time Out LondonCath ClarkeTime Out LondonCath ClarkeThis is a whistle stop tour that leaves you wanting more.
- 80Total FilmTotal FilmA haunting, hypnotic collage of archive footage and period recreations charting the pre-history of the teenager.
- 80Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlThe old footage — newsreels, scraps of home movies — is entrancing, and even those familiar details eventually accrete with the fresh ones into something grand and stirring, especially near the conclusion.
- 80Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfCry foul, you documentary purists, but narration by Jena Malone and others pulls the gamble off. The film makes its point ingeniously.
- 70The DissolveScott TobiasThe DissolveScott TobiasMatt Wolf’s innovative documentary is a bracing reminder that the notion of adolescence as distinct from childhood and adulthood is a relatively modern phenomenon.
- 67The PlaylistKevin JagernauthThe PlaylistKevin JagernauthA clever assemblage of archival and historical material that unfortunately doesn't quite go far enough.
- 60The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerThe New York TimesNeil GenzlingerA lot of intriguing ideas are floated in Teenage... But the film takes a point of view that leaves all of them underdeveloped.
- 58The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergThe A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergLike adolescence itself, Teenage is educational, scattered, and over much too quickly.
- 50Slant MagazineDiego SemereneSlant MagazineDiego SemereneIt botches itself out of its own epic ambitions, an aesthetic slickness that seems to contradict, if not betray, its subject matter, and a maddeningly subdued critical spirit.