Click here to copy URL

John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection

L'empire de la perfection

2018

Julien Faraut

Documentary, Self: John McEnroe

6.4

168

Documentary Written and directed by Faraut and narrated by Mathieu Amalric, this documentary revisits the rich bounty of 16-mm-shot footage of the left-handed tennis star John McEnroe, at the time the world’s top-ranked player, as he competes in the French Open at Paris’s Roland Garros Stadium in 1984. Close-ups and slow motion sequences of McEnroe competing, as well as instances of his notorious temper tantrums, highlight a ”man who played on the ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"Game, set, match — even if the win's a tad exhausting (...) As a unique portrait of competitive drive, this is fascinating stuff."	POS
United States	Jessica Kiang Variety	"A fascinating essay on the kinship between tennis and filmmaking (...) [A] elegant, witty, and thoughtful documentary"	POS
United Kingdom	Nikki Baughan Screendaily	"Faraut’s film is less a biopic and more a thesis about human psychology, which takes in ideas from both cinema and science."	POS
	Fabien Lemercier Cineuropa	"A fascinating documentary on the world of tennis, the art of movement and the interior workings of the game, starring the iconic John McEnroe."	POS
United States	Josh Wise Slant	"Faraut stumbles (...) [It] is worth watching purely for the simultaneously immediate and dreamily distant footage of de Karmadec's footage (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Rory O'Connor The Film Stage	"A witty and contagiously impassioned ethnographical study of the game"	POS
United States	Wesley Morris The New York Times	"An amusing, hypnotic, whimsical, expertly constructed adventure in craft (...) Faraut knows what he’s doing."	POS
United Kingdom	Mike McCahill The Guardian	"The result is an unexpectedly haunting description of 1984’s rollercoaster French men’s-singles final (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tim Robey Telegraph	"The film is a pleasingly eccentric watch, and one full of rare insights (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.