Remake Feature Scores
Explore all 32 feature scores for Remake, organized into pros and cons.
Scores by Feature
Summary
32 reviewed features-
Very positive 4.5-5.023 (72%)
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Positive 3.5-4.48 (25%)
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Neutral 2.5-3.41 (3%)
Pros
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The grief is devastating, but affectionate childhood moments and candid reflections give it depth beyond tragedy. Adrian’s own footage makes the loss especially immediate.
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Memory, mortality, artistic legacy, and the limits of recording a life intertwine in a searching meditation. Its refusal to settle on easy answers is a widely praised strength.
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McElwee’s open, self-questioning approach transforms a family archive into ambitious personal cinema. His observational choices and willingness to confront painful material earn exceptional praise.
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Home movies and Adrian’s recordings become intimate windows into a life that cannot be recovered. Their contrasts reveal personality, grief, and perspectives his father’s camera missed.
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Most critics find the family story and stalled adaptation meaningfully intertwined. Others find the remake thread less engaging or better suited to a separate film, and repetition occasionally weakens the storytelling.
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The portrait preserves Adrian’s wit, ambition, and individuality alongside his addiction. One substantial reservation is the absence of family voices that could broaden the account.
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Dry Hollywood satire, family teasing, and McElwee’s puzzled reactions bring welcome laughter. The humor offers breathing room without erasing the sadness.
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The father-son relationship is treated with affection and painful self-questioning. McElwee’s doubts about his influence and his inability to save Adrian give the portrayal its emotional weight.
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Unvarnished recordings and unresolved self-questioning lend the film unusual honesty. It acknowledges the limits of both a camera’s perspective and the explanations cinema can offer.
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Adrian’s own recordings and candid conversations make addiction feel personal and unvarnished. The material is illuminating but often upsetting to watch.
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The shifting archive makes decades feel painfully adjacent, with cuts that dramatize how abruptly life changes. One critic finds occasional cross-cutting clumsy and repetition unnecessary.
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Adrian’s camerawork is admired for precise movement and visually exciting images. His intervention behind the camera adds interest and energy to the film.
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Arguments, teasing, estrangement, and love create a revealing picture of family life. Ordinary interactions carry weight because the film shows what those bonds eventually endured.
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The film’s scrutiny of its own maker is widely admired for vulnerability and candor. Yet filming intimate family struggles can feel intrusive, and one critic reads the underlying practice as a damaging abuse of power.
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Joy and absurdity sit alongside mourning, keeping the film from becoming a single-note lament. The remake subplot often supplies the lighter counterweight.
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The film is absorbing and sometimes funny despite its painful subject. Some repetitions create fleeting tedium, but the strongest passages remain riveting.
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McElwee’s reflective voice gives the shifting footage a personal thread. Its dry, soothing delivery carries audible heartbreak without losing its familiar warmth.
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Combining the father’s archive with the son’s recordings brings another perspective into the film. Bini’s editorial partnership is also singled out as an apt match.
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The film powerfully connects art, memory, and enduring family love. It also carries a caution about allowing recording to take precedence over lived relationships.
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The film earns praise as an utterly singular, intensely personal documentary rather than a conventional grief portrait.
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The final passages leave an exceptionally strong emotional impression. Their force comes from confronting the last year of Adrian’s life and expressing love that cannot reach him.
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Adrian emerges as a witty, ambitious individual across childhood and adulthood, and other subjects bring engaging personalities. Occasional frustration arises when McElwee shifts attention away from them and back to himself.
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Charleen’s fading memory gains poignancy beside footage of her younger, vivid self. The contrast makes preservation feel both valuable and troubling.
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The documentary is praised for asking searching questions instead of claiming to explain a life completely. Its uncertainty is part of its achievement.
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Candid conversations about addiction offer intelligence and honesty. Adrian’s own interview footage also shows an ability to draw people out.
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The potent mixture of 16mm and digital imagery gives different eras a distinct texture. Adrian’s visually exciting work adds another expressive register.
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The portrayal is praised for showing Adrian without judgment and refusing to reduce him to setbacks. Missing family perspectives nonetheless leave one critic wanting a fuller, more balanced account.
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Earlier-film excerpts help newcomers understand the family history. A reservation is that immersion in the archive sometimes obscures the larger argument.
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The mournful atmosphere is thoroughly devastating. Its emotional weight supports a searching portrait rather than a detached account of loss.
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The real family drama is revealing and compelling, exposing addiction’s effects on intimate relationships.
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The film is praised for building a remarkably complete picture within less than two hours.
Cons
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Repetition is the clearest pacing complaint, with some passages becoming tedious. These weaknesses are generally treated as secondary to the film’s emotional achievements.
Use Cases
Best for
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Prior knowledge of McElwee’s films is unnecessary: excerpts supply context, and the personal story stands on its own. Even a critic entirely new to his work found it deeply moving.
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Familiarity with the earlier films makes this return especially rich. It revisits relationships and reframes earlier footage in light of what happened afterward.
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This personal essay documentary is strongly recommended as serious, reflective cinema. Its stand-alone power survives without familiarity with the filmmaker’s earlier work.
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Its questions about parenting, filming, and grief make it a strong choice for thoughtful conversation afterward.
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The film rewards intent attention to its intimate images and remorseful perspective. Focused watching becomes a way to engage with its difficult meditation on grief.
Cast & Creators
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DirectorMcElwee is praised for vulnerable self-examination, expressive construction, and a deeply affecting use of family footage. Reservations concern self-focus and the troubling consequences of making private life public.
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CinematographerAdrian’s footage adds visual energy, precision, and candid insight into his own world. His interviews and skiing sequences reveal a distinct filmmaking talent that deepens his father’s portrait.
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SelfCharleen’s archived presence is vivid, forceful, and insightful. Her blunt delivery provides an engaging counterpoint to McElwee’s self-reflection.
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EditorJoe Bini is praised as a master editor and a particularly fitting collaborator for the film’s intricate handling of time and perspective.