Neil Young: Heart of Gold Critic Reviews

The mesmerizing, heart-tugging concert film Heart of Gold confirms Neil Young's stature as a national treasure.Read the full review

Director Demme is smart and sensitive enough to sit back and listen to the music without attention-getting intrusions. The tunes are subtly compelling.Read the full review

This smart, aesthetically understated concert film from Jonathan Demme will transport Young's legions of baby boomer fans back to the future, as 1969 re-invents itself in 2005 for Young.Read the full review

In one sense, Neil Young: Heart of Gold is just a simple concert film -- no cutaways during the music for interviews, no cameras swooping and soaring on giant booms. But simplicity in this case also means no barrier between us and the people on stage, as they sing some of the most soul-stirring pop songs I've seen performed in a very long time.Read the full review

A snapshot of a fabled career that's of little interest to anyone outside Young's fans.Read the full review

It's hard to film icons like Young as anything BUT icons, but Demme's film gets past the legend, zooming in on Young's aged, heroic face and finding an artist as human as the rest of us.Read the full review

It's the record of a life, a musical and spiritual autobiography, and as directed by Jonathan Demme it taps into the kind of unashamed, unsentimental emotion that's become increasingly rare in films of any kind.Read the full review

At one point, during one of his occasional verbal rambles, he (Young) says half-jokingly, half-defensively that he's got some love songs left in him. This film, which is at once a valentine from one artist to another and a valentine from a musician to his audience, is surely proof that he does.Read the full review

Young, wizened yet valiant, his voice still braying at the moon, delivers these songs of aging and loss as if caught in a beautiful dream of what lies waiting for him on the other side.Read the full review