A Private War's reviews
Media reviews
Roger Ebert
Matthew Heineman has a strong sense of time and place and keeps the story compelling without letting the audience become desensitized by tragedy.
Variety
A Private War manages to be simultaneously appalled by the humanitarian crises it depicts...and honest about the thrill that visiting such hot spots offered to someone who found it hard to readjust to her life in London between assignments.
New York Times
Is a deeply distressing, authentically moving psychological study of unswerving obsession
Indiewire
A Private War resolves as such an effective memoir because even in its most clichéd moments it resists easy psychoanalysis
Vanity Fair
Directed by documentarian Matthew Heineman, no stranger to war-torn lands himself, A Private War casts a bracingly intimate gaze, and yet sometimes has the tinny, expositional clank of based-on-a-true-story cinema.
Empire
A sometimes clunkily executed true-life story which at least has potency in its blend of subject matter and lead actor. Despite often being hard to watch, this is Rosamund Pike?s best work yet.
The Hollywood Reporter
Pike's fierce performance invigorates a mixed-bag film
The Playlist
Aside from the striking scenes occurring on the battlefronts, everything else in this picture is subpar. ?A Private War? works off a disjointed script and tells a dull story, populated with forgettable characters. Pike throws herself into Marie, and the intensity of her commitment is palpable, but the flashy performance feels soulless.