“A Poetic Spellbinder…” What Critics are Saying About COLUMBUS

If your social media feed looks anything like mine, you’ve been hearing more and more people singing the praises of the terrifically engaging new film COLUMBUS. It is certainly the best-reviewed film out there today (98% on the Tomatometer), and many of the critics are pulling out the superlatives. Note Richard Brody’s review below. Brody is not a guy who dusts off words like “genius” very often.
COLUMBUS opens at the AFS Cinema this weekWriter/director Kogonada will join us for our Saturday night 8/26 screening – tickets are going fast – and we look forward to talking with all our friends about this moving and daring film that shows us many new facets of our lives and surroundings. We’ve written about Kogonada’s noted video essays before, and we can see in COLUMBUS how well he has absorbed the lessons taught by his filmmaking masters.
Yes, it really is about two people (John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson) who walk around Columbus, Indiana talking about architecture. Along the way, it becomes visual music as the characters’ tumultuous inner lives are soothed and guided by the modernist spaces around them. Full admission: this kind of narrative is a tightrope walk, but we’re pleased to report that Kogonada succeeds with aplomb and even manages to add some graceful flourishes along the way.
But if you don’t believe us, check out what these critics have to say.

The New Yorker’s Richard Brody says “Few performances—and few films—glow as brightly with the gemlike fire of precocious genius.”

The Playlists’ Jessica Kiang calls it “a gentle but sharply defined story, brimming with grace, compassion and performances of perfect naturalism, it is unashamedly intellectual yet deeply human.”

Variety’s Geoff Berkshire calls COLUMBUS a “hypnotically paced drama carried by the serendipitous odd-couple pairing of John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson is lovely and tender, marking Kogonada as an auteur to watch.”

Justin Chang for the Los Angeles times writes, “What’s remarkable about this wondrously assured debut is that technique never overwhelms feeling, in part because Kogonada makes the two seem inextricably, harmoniously linked.”

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