The Death and Life of John F. Donovan's reviews
Media reviews
The Hollywood Reporter
Dolan has labored hard to yoke together these tricksy, time-jumping, intertwined plots, reportedly editing down a mountain of material over two years. In the process, a whole character played by Jessica Chastain was surgically removed. But however long he tinkered, Dolan has not quite salvaged a story whose default setting seems to be mirthless, ponderous navel-gazing.
Variety
What could have been a powerful ode to the impact that movies have in shaping our identities ? and by extension, the reason broken people are drawn to the profession, through which they hope to reach others like themselves ? becomes an over-the-top celebration of Dolan himself.
The Guardian
None of it rings remotely true and his insistence on playing out so many scenes at such a high level can make it an excruciating watch
Cinemanía
[?] He doesn't go deep enough to make us ignore he's starting the film with 'Rolling in the Deep' by his friend Adele. Also, he practically eats his characters with the camera and make them scream almost as in It's Only the End of the World. And already being so close (he's famous already) to that fame that has the leading role in the movie, he only expresses it through repetition and the surface of the subject.
The Guardian
We get a rainy reunion soundtracked as if it?s an insurance commercial [?] and finally we?re lumped with a meaningless final scene accompanied by a song choice so head-smashingly obvious (an increasingly annoying trademark of his) that it starts to feel like Dolan is parodying a Dolan movie.
Indiewire
Despite its many miscalculations, ?The Death and Life of John F. Donovan? fires off so many half-formed ideas lost in its prolonged edit that it can be appreciated as a sheer mess of unfinished business. Dolan?s obsession with crafting expressive sequences set to blaring pop music means that this restless movie at least has plenty of pretty moments to distract from its innumerable shortcomings.