Review of Starless Dreams (2017) by Alan Scherstuhl for Village Voice — 19 Jan 2017

The world needs to see this spare, revelatory film and hear these girls' pained and sometimes proud confessions.

You can read the full review where it was originally posted online.

This review of Starless Dreams (2017) was written by Alan Scherstuhl and published by Village Voice on 19 Jan 2017.

Starless Dreams has generally received very positive reviews.

Was this review helpful?

Yes

More reviews of this movie:

More Reviews of Starless Dreams

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By John Bleasdale (289) for CineVue (2,163) on 17 Jan 2017

Starless Dreams is a fascinating and humane view of the marginalised and forgotten…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Clayton Dillard (209) for Slant Magazine (8,298) on 17 Jan 2017

Mehrdad Oskouei avoids sentimentalizing the girls or tritely lamenting their stolen innocence…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Ben Kenigsberg (863) for The New York Times (9,847) on 19 Jan 2017

If Starless Dreams inspires conflicted feelings in viewers, it may be by design. It’s hard not to want to flee, and it’s hard to look away…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Noel Murray (1,901) for The A.V. Club (5,644) on 17 Jan 2017

What distinguishes Starless Dreams is Oskouei’s voice, heard from off screen, getting these girls to be honest about where they’ve come…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Tom Huddleston (600) for Time Out London (344) on 17 Jan 2017

These young women have already witnessed enough horror to last a lifetime, and in this unforgiving society their lot seems unlikely to improve…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Scott Tobias (1,684) for Variety (12,700) on 17 Jan 2017

With the conceptual rigor and emotional directness associated with the best of Iranian cinema, Oskouei simply listens to the stories of those…

Read Review

Review of Starless Dreams (2017)

By Deborah Young (235) for The Hollywood Reporter (7,050) on 17 Jan 2017

Starless Dreams (Royahaye Dame Sobh), shot in a juvenile correctional facility for girls under the age of 18, is the perfect example of how…

Read Review

More reviews of this movie

More Reviews by Alan Scherstuhl

Review of Private Life (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 03 Oct 2018

Jenkins (director of The Savages and Slums of Beverly Hills) is always more interested in emotional truth than she is in laughs…

Read Review

Review of Creed II (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 21 Nov 2018

It’s a Rocky movie, just the latest go-round, its story more formulaic, its people less specific, its rhythms as wheezily familiar as a workout…

Read Review

Review of El Angel (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 08 Nov 2018

El Angel is a crime spree as improvised reverie, one with a subject who is as quick to give away his loot as the director is to make the subtext…

Read Review

Review of Happy as Lazzaro (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 06 Dec 2018

Rohrwacher’s work unites a passionate interest in social realism, in the hardships faced by people on the streets and in the fields, with…

Read Review

Review of Monrovia, Indiana (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 01 Nov 2018

Wiseman doesn’t engage with immigration or migrant labor in his town portrait, which helps make Monrovia, Indiana a stubborn entry into his…

Read Review

Review of The Sentence (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 11 Oct 2018

Here’s a true surprise in 2018: a documentary about an American injustice that will likely leave you, by its end, blubbering tears of relieved joy…

Read Review

Review of Schindler's List (1993)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for Miami New Times (17) on 04 Dec 2018

Schindler's List is monumental because it demands that we imagine the abominable, but it's great because of its creator's conviction that to…

Read Review

Review of Science Fair (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for Denver Westword (26) on 26 Sep 2018

Science Fair has been engineered to please crowds, and at that it's a rousing success…

Read Review

Review of On Her Shoulders (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for L.A. Weekly (3,142) on 23 Oct 2018

Especially wrenching are scenes of the Yazidi, torn from the land of their birth, separated from one another in camps, confronting the question…

Read Review

Review of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

By Alan Scherstuhl (679) for Denver Westword (26) on 30 Oct 2018

The swift yet lengthy Bohemian Rhapsody often verges on becoming something as thrilling as Queen itself - and then crashes back into the off-putting,…

Read Review

More Reviews by Alan Scherstuhl

Popular Movies Right Now

Dune

2021

77%276 Reviews

Nope

2022

68%181 Reviews

Talk to Me

2023

74%83 Reviews

John Wick: Chapter 4

2023

78%170 Reviews

Godzilla vs. Kong

2021

66%184 Reviews

A Quiet Place

2018

76%1,685 Reviews

Inside Out

2015

86%1,276 Reviews

Upgrade

2018

76%696 Reviews

Where the Crawdads Sing

2022

63%92 Reviews

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2017

69%660 Reviews

Movies You Viewed Recently

Starless Dreams

2017

80%8 Reviews

Liar Liar

1997

73%570 Reviews

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

2017

62%1,526 Reviews

The Horseman

2006

71%121 Reviews

Novocaine

2001

53%147 Reviews

Braveheart

1995

79%792 Reviews

Havoc

2005

47%422 Reviews

Stolen Summer

2002

57%93 Reviews

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2015

76%1,238 Reviews

Hit by Lightning

2014

38%19 Reviews