---
title: "Faces Places: the reviews"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/faces-places/reviews"
title_page: "https://film.one/film/faces-places"
critics_score: 85
critics_reviews: 22
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."
---

# Faces Places (2017): what the critics said

Critics' score 85 from 22 reviews: 21 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative.

Most critics are won over by Varda and JR’s road trip through rural France, pasting giant portraits of farmers, miners and other working people onto walls and shipping containers. The praise clusters on the pair themselves: the reviews return again and again to the friendship between a director nearing ninety and an artist decades her junior, and find it funny, tender and a little melancholy. Several read the portraits as political, a case for ordinary lives over celebrity and wealth, and most find Varda’s reflections on age, memory and her failing eyesight affecting rather than maudlin.

The spread is narrow: twenty-one of twenty-two reviews are positive and one is mixed. Reservations, where they exist, are mild. The AV Club finds it short of the essayistic point of view of Varda’s best documentaries, and The Times, alone in stopping at three stars, still grants it poignancy as a snapshot of a vanishing France. Nobody dislikes it; the disagreement is only over whether charm is enough.

## Little White Lies — Sophie Monks Kaufman

Rating 4/5/5. 19 September 2018. 

The critic finds the film a singularly charming social document that captures Varda and JR's endearing odd-couple chemistry and their humanising art project. It highlights the tenderness in Varda's reflections on life, death, and connection amid the road-trip encounters.

[Read the review](https://lwlies.com/reviews/faces-places)

## IndieWire

Rating A. 22 May 2017. Festival review. 

Varda and JR's whimsical tour of the French countryside, pasting massive portraits of locals onto their environments, is magnificently moving, funny, life-affirming and altogether wonderful. The critic singles out the intergenerational chemistry and soul-stirring reminder of human connection through art.

[Read the review](https://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/faces-places-review-agnes-varda-1201830084/)

## Film Comment — Jonathan Romney

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 

The critic praises the joyful collaboration between Varda and JR as they photograph and monumentalize ordinary French people, highlighting themes of community, memory, and mortality in a breezy, generous film.

[Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/film-week-faces-places/)

## RogerEbert.com — Glenn Kenny

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 6 October 2017. 

Varda, nearing 90, continues to make searching, compassionate and funny films, here collaborating with JR on a humanist road documentary that celebrates ordinary people through large-scale portraits. The film movingly pairs the artists while confronting aging, memory and friendship, ending on a note that blurs documentary and fiction.

[Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/faces-places-2017)

## Screen Daily

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2017. Festival review. 

The critic describes the film as an utterly charming road movie documentary full of puppy-dog energy and curiosity. It singles out the joyful celebration of friendship, art and life, while noting a lament for a disappearing France.

[Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/faces-places-visages-villages-cannes-review/5118156.article)

## Sight and Sound — Sukhdev Sandhu

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 25 September 2018. 

The critic praises the intuitive, collaborative road trip between Varda and JR as they connect with ordinary French people through large-scale portraits. It singles out the film's blend of collective joy, personal poignancy, and Varda's playful instinct for memory and improvisation.

[Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/faces-places-review-agnes-varda-pastes-her-playfulness-over-french-landscapes)

## The Hollywood Reporter — Todd McCarthy

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 21 May 2017. Festival review. 

The film is a lovely addition to Varda's personal documentaries about French life, following the director and JR on a road trip through rural and working-class communities where they engage locals and post large photographic portraits. McCarthy highlights the charming, unplanned encounters and the special spin through France's backwaters.

[Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/visages-villages-faces-places-review-1005799/)

## The New York Times — A.O. Scott

Rating Critic's Pick. 5 October 2017. 

At 89, Varda proves she has everything left to discover, teaming with JR for meandering road trips that turn ordinary encounters into powerful public art. The film reveals itself as a complex, radical work through its democratic, conversational approach to people and places.

[Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/movies/review-faces-places-agnes-varda-jr-travel-in-the-present-glancing-at-the-past.html)

## Variety — Owen Gleiberman

Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 26 May 2017. Festival review. 

Varda, at 88, remains ageless, conjuring another enchanting personalized documentary with JR that renders ordinary rural French lives large through epic portraits. The slender premise yields a profound, playful political statement about valuing everyday people over celebrity and wealth.

[Read the review](https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/visages-villages-review-agnes-varda-1202444461/)

## Empire — David Parkinson

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 21 September 2018. 

Varda and JR form an empathetic team whose collaboration is provocative, poetic and poignant. The film blends whimsy with a sharp political edge while highlighting ordinary people's stories.

[Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/faces-places-review/)

## Los Angeles Times — Justin Chang

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 12 October 2017. 

Varda and JR embark on a lovely, restorative road trip through French towns, plastering giant portraits on buildings and containers to celebrate overlooked people, especially women. Her fading eyesight and undimmed openness make the film an invigorating tribute to empathy and artistic collaboration.

[Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-faces-places-review-20171013-story.html)

## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 20 September 2018. 

The critic praises this beguiling essay/road movie for its warmth, playful spirit and the spectacular, moving giant portraits created by Varda and JR of ordinary French people. The collaboration between the veteran director and the young artist is singled out as unique and touching.

[Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/20/faces-places-review-agnes-varda-jr-road-movie-documentary)

## The New Yorker — Richard Brody

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 10 October 2017. 

Varda and JR travel rural France creating heroic-scale portraits of ordinary workers, farmers and women, turning daily life into devotional images. The warm, celebratory film honors the heroism of everyday labor while becoming personal through Varda’s reflections on age and cinema history.

[Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/agnes-varda-and-jrs-faces-places-honors-ordinary-people-on-a-heroic-scale)

## Evening Standard — Charlotte O'Sullivan

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 21 September 2018. 

Varda and JR's road trip creates epic portraits of rural people that make viewers look and listen closely. The film is the most melancholy yet uplifting buddy movie of the year, with a moving climax involving Godard.

[Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/faces-places-review-new-wave-legend-agnes-varda-takes-us-on-a-road-trip-with-a-difference-a3941991.html)

## Time Out — Anna Smith

Rating 4/5. 14 September 2018. 

The critic calls it a delightful documentary that captures the odd-couple road trip and its focus on villagers and their stories. It singles out Varda's compassionate exploration of compassion, ageing, memories and art through the giant portraits.

[Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/faces-places)

## Vulture

Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 3 October 2017. 

The film doubles as Varda's artistic statement, a road movie and public-art project touring rural French villages to cover structures with giant likenesses of locals. It singles out the real sweetness in the intergenerational chemistry between Varda and JR and the deeply touching large-scale works.

[Read the review](https://www.vulture.com/2017/10/faces-places-a-road-movie-and-an-artistic-statement.html)

## The AV Club — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Rating B. 5 October 2017. 

Varda and JR tour the French countryside in a giant-camera truck, creating wall-sized portraits while visiting farms, coal towns and other spots, with oodles of charm and moments of beauty. The review notes it lacks the essayistic point-of-view of Varda's best documentaries.

[Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/arthouse-icon-agnes-varda-takes-a-wise-and-whimsical-ro-1819111583)

## The Times — Tom Shone

Rating ★★★. 23 September 2018. 

The review calls the film a poignant snapshot of a vanishing France, noting the powerful emotional effect of the giant portraits on their subjects and an undertone of elegy beneath its charming surface. The chemistry between the age-distant collaborators is highlighted positively.

[Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/article/faces-places-review-agnes-vardas-poignant-snapshot-of-the-french-7rqb0h3t2)

## Eye for Film — Amber Wilkinson

Rating 4.5/5. 15 December 2017. 

Varda and JR's road trip through France creates large-scale community portraits that blend accessibility with philosophical depth about home, visibility, and seeing the world differently. The film is warmly engaging and nostalgic without sentimentality, serving as a love letter to Varda's perspective.

[Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/faces-places-2017-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)

## The Playlist — Bradley Warren

Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2017. Festival review. 

Varda and JR's collaboration produces an endlessly charming documentary that looks forward and back with insight, blending whimsy, wisdom, and modern essay filmmaking. It highlights their complementary artistic sensibilities and intimate connections with people and places across France.

[Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/agnes-vardas-whimsical-faces-places-is-endlessly-charming-cannes-review/)

## HeyUGuys — Steven Neish

Rating 4/5. 7 March 2018. Festival review. 

The film is an intriguing and playful artistic journey that shines a light on overlooked rural communities through Varda and JR's collaboration. It celebrates ordinary people and their stories while highlighting the duo's genuine connection and creative impact.

[Read the review](https://www.heyuguys.com/faces-places-review/)

## The Skinny — Jamie Dunn

Rating 4/5. 16 February 2018. 

The critic finds the whimsical road-trip documentary rewarding and moving, praising how Varda and JR turn ordinary people into icons while also celebrating Varda herself as a colossus of cinema.

[Read the review](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/faces-places)

---
© 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/faces-places.md