Box Office Review

Marya Murphy's picture

Sara Schieron reviews Canary for Box Office Magazine:

Adams' camerawork, which constantly skates over the surface of information, treats each crucial detail as casually as something only slightly relevant to the story: in this world, literally nothing is sacred. If you were to project the emotional lethargy and hummingbird heartbeat attention span of Slacker onto J.J. Abrams TV drama Lost you'd be getting close to Canary. The genius of Adams' directorial practice is the way it forces the audience to participate and assume a form of complicity in this deranged alternate universe.

Sara rates Canary four out of five stars, and I believe this is the first time the word "genius" has been used to describe Alejandro and/or his films in an industry publication.

Read the entire review here.

"This second feature by Alejandro Adams confirms him as an arresting talent. [Viewers] may be fascinated to the point of repeat viewings to sort out its myriad characters and half-buried clues."
-- Dennis Harvey, Variety


"Micro in budget, macro in ambition, accomplishment, and scope, Adams's slyly withholding film prompts multiple viewings--and deserves them."
-- Jim Ridley, Village Voice


"Wildly ambitious...an overwhelming and surprisingly fresh-feeling sense of dystopian dread."
-- Karina Longworth, Spout


"[CANARY is] terrific...very creepy and uncanny. It's quite an achievement."
-- Phillip Lopate


"Mysterious, elliptical, Bresson-like. [CANARY] is to biotech what PRIMER was to time-travel."
-- Richard von Busack, Metro


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