Meta Critic Watch: "Must Read After My Death"

“Must Read After My Death” is the home video and cassette-tape documentary of the marriage bathed in battery acid and hell fire. Writer, Director, and grandson of the deceased couple, Morgan Dews creates a documentary that not only paints, but allows the viewer to watch dry the family portrait of despondency, anger, and frustration. Overall, the film garnered an average rating of 73 out of 100, with ratings fluxing from 60 to 88.

The film received its highest rating of 88 from Roger Ebert of the Sun Times. Ebert found the film to be morbidly compelling in its brutal, naked honesty of “a marriage from hell.” His extending questions and comments are interspersed throughout the plot summary. He does not offer any suggestions on what he thought could have been done better, or what was done exceptionally well, but does say that he found it horrifying and fascinating enough to earn an 88. A well done image of what to expect from the film is presented, but as he says “There are some things you will see here that will lead you to some conclusions. I will leave you to them.”

Elizabeth Weitzman of Daily News found the film worthy of a solid four star, or 80 rating. Her only description of the film as a whole is that it is “intensely compelling” dealing with its themes of sexism, neuroticism, and conformism. There really is not any lavish praised for the film, nor any burning criticisms of what it fails to do. It would seem that she found the film to be effective in its methods, but found nothing superb to write home about.

Finally- a full review! The A.V.Club’s Noel Murray opens by discussing America’s clean-cut and happy-go-lucky perception of the post-WWII culture, and how this movie shatters all of those perceptions with angst and emotional nudity that make “Revolutionary Road” into a child‘s story. She admits that the “relentless negativity can become overwhelming at times, but it’s undeniably mesmerizing.” Her focus on the eerie music over the haunting home video and lack of voice-overs helps evoke the tone and purpose behind film: to honor his grandmother’s last wish and tell the story of his family’s disgruntled past of two generations ago. Apparently the vibe was a bit too dark for Murray as she deemed it worthy a mediocre 75.

Although The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern tagged the film at 70, his review gave the impression that his interest in the film what much higher. He described it as “a frightening-- and eerily edifying-- documentary” where “horror and social values contend for equal honors.” While he also admits that the film has the potential to be overly dark, dreary, and unwatchable, he finds that Dews’ “historian skills and artist’s eye” avoid such a film with glimpses of potential relative to what the family aspired to be.

Ella Taylor of The Village Voice gave the film its lowest rating of all critics with a rating of 60. The reasons why are not because she particularly disliked the film; as she put it, “this devastating documentary portrait of domestic misery in early-1960s suburban America” reveals the ills of the human psyches that resided in their home. She praises Dews for being able to tacitly shift the balance of domestic power to his underappreciated, disrespected, and emotionally raw grandmother to shed light on the life lived but unacknowledged in America.

Overall, critics enjoyed the effectiveness of Dews’ editing and choice of music and lack of voice-overs, but still found the film just too depressing. There was no final sense of justice or resolution for how poorly his grandfather treated his grandmother and family, which I think left neither a dry nor wet, but rather pasty taste in critics and viewers’ mouths.