--- title: "Full Frontal: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/full-frontal/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/full-frontal" critics_score: 36 critics_reviews: 7 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." --- # Full Frontal (2002): what the critics said Critics' score 36 from 7 reviews: 1 positive, 2 mixed, 4 negative. Most critics find Full Frontal a self-indulgent experiment, and the spread is narrow: the reviews run from lukewarm to hostile with one clear defender. The complaints cluster on the same points. Soderbergh’s film-within-a-film structure, the mixing of digital video with film stock and the day-in-the-life drift through Los Angeles are read as tricks that never add up to a story, and several critics see a famous director filming his friends for his own amusement. The New Yorker goes furthest, judging it among the most naïve failures by a major director. Where there is praise, it lands on the cast: Catherine Keener is singled out more than once, alongside David Hyde Pierce, Nicky Katt and Julia Roberts in particular scenes. The dissenter is The AV Club, which takes the circular, reflective structure as the work of a filmmaker in command of the digital format rather than lost in it, while Eye for Film finds the observed detail invigorating even as it irritates. ## The AV Club — Keith Phipps Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 5 August 2002. The critic calls it a head-spinning circular journey through reflections and representations that showcases Soderbergh as a master filmmaker using DV effectively for blurry identities and meta elements. He notes that the human element occasionally gets lost amid the pretzel logic and digressions. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/full-frontal-1798197710) ## Empire — Colin Kennedy Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). Soderbergh should be forgiven for the low-budget improv experiment with famous friends, but the green script and half-cocked device make it self-indulgent; the digital camera provides some intimacy and comic set-pieces. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/full-frontal-review/) ## The Independent — Nicholas Barber Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 24 May 2003. The film is a trivial and smug meander through a day in the lives of various LA characters having personal crises, relying on in-jokes. It is outshone by Robert Altman as a tapestry of Hollywood lives and duplicates earlier improv experiments. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/son-of-the-bridefull-frontalthe-missouri-breaksthe-hot-chick-106262.html) ## Slant Magazine — Ed Gonzalez Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 2 August 2002. The critic finds the film an inscrutable, overly self-reflexive experiment that fails to be about anything in particular and amounts to pointless claptrap. He singles out the meta structure and varying film stocks as unsuccessful attempts to separate reality from fiction. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/full-frontal/) ## The Times Rating 1/5. 24 May 2003. The critic dismisses the film as a preposterous satire and dismal, pointless jigsaw on the film industry. [Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/new-releases-hzl2w5pnj7s) ## The New Yorker — David Denby Fi1m's normalised score 10/100 (inferred from the text). 29 July 2002. Soderbergh's attempt at a neo-Godardian deconstruction of cinematic reality fails to add up to any coherent fiction, making it one of the most naïvely awful films from a major director. It singles out the arbitrary mess of levels of representation and the unappealing low-budget methods as ostentation rather than substance. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/08/05/going-with-it) ## Screen Daily 31 July 2002. The review finds the film a disappointing lapse into self-indulgence, flimsy, uninvolving and pointlessly arty as an empty tribute to Godard and Dogme-style experimentation. The strong ensemble cast helps commercially but mainstream audiences will find it frustratingly impenetrable. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/full-frontal/4010035.article) ## The Guardian 23 May 2003. The critic finds the film fatally flawed as an escape to indie roots, describing it as a chic home movie full of familiar faces that fails to engage beyond small doses. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/may/23/artsfeatures) ## The New York Times — A. O. Scott 2 August 2002. The film experiments with form through a movie-within-a-movie structure and loose connections among characters over one day, resulting in a fragmented narrative that dismembers continuity. It singles out strong performances, particularly from Nicky Katt and Julia Roberts in certain scenes, as exceptions amid the overall stylistic play. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/movies/film-review-make-a-movie-about-a-movie-repeat.html) ## Time Out 10 September 2012. The critic notes that Soderbergh has gotten carried away with himself in this grab bag of cinematic tricks that juggles planes of reality and fiction. The result is a disjointed and frustratingly self-absorbed Hollywood home movie, though Catherine Keener is typically outstanding. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/full-frontal) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy 25 July 2002. The film is arid, self-consciously arty and emotionally uninvolving, a conventionally experimental exercise that will flummox admirers and bore the public despite the director's streak of hits. It singles out the production methods and mixed formats as more interesting than the stifling, audience-unfriendly material on screen. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2002/film/reviews/full-frontal-1200547182/) ## Eye for Film — Angus Wolfe Murray Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 22 May 2003. The critic finds the film infuriating for being too close to real life yet invigorating because it doesn't care. They praise the beautifully observed touches, moments of absurdity and despair, and especially the performances of Catherine Keener and David Hyde Pierce. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/full-frontal-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) --- © 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/full-frontal.md