--- title: "Dogville: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/dogville/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/dogville" critics_score: 60 critics_reviews: 9 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Dogville (2003): what the critics said Critics' score 60 from 9 reviews: 4 positive, 3 mixed, 2 negative. The reviews lean towards admiration, but agreement is limited. Praise centres on von Trier’s bare-stage setting and stripped-down theatrical approach, which supporters find well suited to a fable about exploitation and human cruelty. Nicole Kidman and the ensemble draw frequent praise for giving the deliberately artificial setting emotional force. For the more enthusiastic critics, the minimal scenery makes the town’s behaviour more disturbing rather than keeping it at a distance. Reservations cluster around the length, repetition and heavy-handed allegory, with several critics finding the drama contrived or short on insight. The spread is wide: even the performances and staging that persuade supporters strike some detractors as monotonous or gimmicky. The political reading is also disputed. The New Yorker condemns a condescending attack on American values, while Radio Times sees a broader study of human frailty and explicitly rejects the anti-American reading. ## Radio Times — David Parkinson Rating 4/5. Von Trier creates a defiantly stylised picture on a bare sound stage with an excellent ensemble cast led by Nicole Kidman. It offers a sobering study in human frailty that is not anti-American. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-v1yqrt/dogville/) ## Screen Daily Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2003. Festival review. Dogville is a bold, uncompromising experiment in stripped-down narrative and theatrical execution that explores the disappointments of human nature. It is a must-see arthouse provocation that will divide audiences, with Von Trier remaining an original talent. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/dogville/4013518.article) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Rating 3/5. 13 February 2004. The critic finds Dogville a technically accomplished Brechtian experiment with strong performances from Kidman and others but ultimately an exasperating, contrived shaggy-dog story lacking emotional depth or real insight into its subject. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/feb/13/2) ## The New York Times — A. O. Scott Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 21 March 2004. The review examines the film's minimalist staging and its portrayal of small-town America as a site of hypocrisy and cruelty, noting the director's deliberate avoidance of realism to deliver a pointed moral fable. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/movies/dogville-it-fakes-a-village.html) ## Time Out — GA Fi1m's normalised score 55/100 (inferred from the text). 30 August 2012. The film is an ambitious but fatally self-important account of a small town's hypocrisy and intolerance toward a woman seeking refuge. It praises the strong performances and the wicked glee of the final scene while criticizing the repetitive, overlong drama and gimmicky Brechtian style. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/dogville) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 35/100 (inferred from the text). 9 April 2004. The critic finds the bare-stage concept intriguing but faults the execution as pedantic and overly long, turning a potentially strong idea into a tedious slog through heavy-handed allegory. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dogville-2004) ## The New Yorker — David Denby Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 22 March 2004. The critic dismisses the film as obtuse and dislikable avant-gardism, criticizing its schematic allegory, monotonous performances, and condescending attack on American values. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/03/29/the-quick-and-the-dead-3) ## Empire — Alan Morrison The critic praises von Trier's daring theatrical style, likening it to Brecht, while noting that the film's stripped-down sets and intrusive camerawork create a uniquely cinematic intensity. It singles out the performances and the moral depth of the narrative as making Dogville a great work in the didactic stage tradition. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/dogville-review/) ## IndieWire 25 March 2004. The piece describes Dogville as a trying masterpiece that showcases von Trier's idealism and invention through its provocative style and themes. [Read the review](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/idealism-and-invention-lars-von-triers-trying-masterpiece-dogville-79046/) ## Slant Magazine — Ed Gonzalez 27 September 2003. The critic views Dogville as a Brechtian critique of oppression and human cruelty rather than strictly anti-American, praising its minimalist staging and universal themes drawn from European theater traditions. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/dogville/) ## The AV Club — Scott Tobias 23 March 2004. The critic praises von Trier as a peerless dramatist for the film's abstract minimalist staging and emotional intensity, noting it works as Christian allegory and comment on exploitation beyond a narrow anti-American reading. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/dogville-1798199464) ## The Times The review highlights the film's unsettling, provocative nature as a fable exposing human darkness and the exploitation of vulnerability, noting its stylistic boldness alongside its discomforting elements. [Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/theatre-dance/article/dogville-rv9q0l8kg0d) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy 19 May 2003. Festival review. The review describes the bare-stage experiment as an ideologically apocalyptic blast at American values that is obvious in intent but murky in achievement, likely to provoke strong reactions on the festival circuit. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2003/film/markets-festivals/dogville-1200541582/) ## Eye for Film — Angus Wolfe Murray Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 13 February 2004. The review praises the film's bold theatrical staging on a bare stage and its incisive dissection of human nature as a powerful allegory. It singles out Nicole Kidman's luminous performance as Grace and John Hurt's narration for making the long fable compelling and psychologically accurate. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/dogville-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) ## Paste — Robert Davis Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 29 December 2003. The critic finds Dogville clinically ironic yet unique, inspired and quite sublime, with its stripped-bare fairy-tale style and minimal set standing out. The film is seen as thought-provoking, potentially offering a self-critique by von Trier amid its layers of irony and allegory. [Read the review](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/dogville) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/dogville.md