The reviews are consistently positive about Dear Zachary, with praise centred on its emotional force and the intimacy of Kurt Kuenne’s portrait of his friend. Critics repeatedly single out the editing: home footage, photographs and frank interviews bring the subject and his loved ones close, while giving the documentary an urgent pace. Its combination of personal memorial and anger at the Canadian justice system is widely seen as affecting, even when its methods are forceful.
The reservations concern how hard the film pushes for a response. The Guardian questions its manipulative tone and some footage choices; Variety is similarly troubled by the polemical approach, while admiring the editing. Time Out finds some cinematic roughness but values the immediacy. The spread is fairly narrow: these are disagreements about restraint and polish within a positive consensus, rather than doubts about the story’s power.