Spanking The Monkey Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 8 Critic ReviewsHighest Rated
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A director with a more sensationalistic temperament might have milked this last section of the picture for melodramatic effect, but Russell's direction becomes, if anything, more brisk and more clipped.Read the full review
Davies registers believable frustration and deadpan teenage disengagement in equal measure.Read the full review
This is dangerous, dissonant material, but writer/director David O. Russell, making his feature filmmaking debut, somehow pulls it off.Read the full review
It is also the sort of astonishingly fresh and self-assured work that can make a reputation.Read the full review
This is not a "nice" movie -- it deals with some pretty intense issues (like incest and suicide) -- but it is both bold and inventive, and works because of an unforced approach.Read the full review
Russell is unusual among first-time directors in his ability to mold and shape performance. [28 Jul 1994 Pg. F2]Read the full review
Even so, the film's incest theme seems more symbolic than literal in what is, at heart, a comedy about escaping the womb; throwaway gags are wicked enough throughout to keep the taboo plot twist from knocking this hit-and-miss black comedy off the track. [26 Jul 1994 Pg. 08.D]Read the full review
The story is undoubtedly weird, but perhaps more so on paper than on the screen, since Russell and his actors have played it mostly straight in attempting to confer psychological validity on all the untoward developments.Read the full review
