Rotten Tomatoes

Movies / TV

    Celebrity

      No Results Found

       View All       Movies Tv shows Shop News Showtimes

      Ahead of Time

      2009 1h 13m Documentary Biography List
      91% 11 Reviews Tomatometer 78% 50+ Ratings Audience Score Ruth Gruber becomes the world's youngest Ph.D. at age 20 and a New York Herald Tribune reporter at age 24. She is given a secret mission as a trusted member of the Roosevelt administration during World War II. Read More Read Less Watch on Fandango at Home Premiered Sep 12 Buy Now

      Where to Watch

      Ahead of Time

      Fandango at Home Prime Video

      Rent Ahead of Time on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

      Critics Reviews

      View All (11) Critics Reviews
      Stephanie Merry Washington Post Through interviews, photos and letters, Robert Richman's documentary gives insight into Gruber's life as well as the immense potential that comes with an irrepressible personality and a good dose of patience. Rated: 3/4 Nov 19, 2010 Full Review Tom Horgen Minneapolis Star Tribune The film packs a staggering amount of Gruber's life into 75 minutes. Rated: 3/4 Nov 18, 2010 Full Review Tom Russo Boston Globe There are points where shots of Gruber's old newspaper clips actually supply clearer information than the narrative (for quick-reading viewers, at any rate). Rated: 2.5/4 Nov 18, 2010 Full Review Anne Brodie What She Said Activist/reporter/feminist Ruth Gruber's book Exodus 1947 was banned for sixty years but she lived long enough to see it published. Her achievements and sacrifice are exemplary and deeply inspiring and Robert Richman's doc does her justice. Rated: 4/4 Sep 15, 2023 Full Review Tricia Olszewski Washington City Paper This now-99-year-old Brooklyn native can still tell a good yarn -- and her accomplishments make a pretty compelling story, too. Nov 18, 2010 Full Review Betsy Sherman Boston Phoenix The journalist as advocate and activist has rarely been contained in a more compelling package than Ruth Gruber. Rated: 3/4 Nov 17, 2010 Full Review Read all reviews

      Audience Reviews

      View All (2) audience reviews
      Audience Member A well-done documentary of a fascinating and brilliant person. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review walter m "Ahead of Time" is a mildly interesting documentary that serves as a pedestrian walk back through time for Dr. Ruth Gruber who at 96 finds herself recalling events from her fabulous life. At the age of 20, she earned a doctorate on the books of Virginia Woolf in Cologne, Germany where she also heard Adolf Hitler speak, just to see if he was as evil as everybody was saying he was. After that, it was hard finding work as a writer in the Great Depression but she eventually landed assignments from the New York Herald Tribune, serving as a role model for women in the same way that Virginia Woolf had served for her.(For example, Dava Sobel is her niece.) Through Ruth Gruber's life, she was a trailblazer but it was not until after World War II when the historical impact of her actions began to take hold. It was then that she covered the plight of Jewish refugees, showing their suffering for all the world to see, especially the story of the ship Exodus which attempted to bring some of them to Palestine against British orders. Not surprisingly the passengers' ordeal was more complex than in the Otto Preminger movie. What's ironic is the copy of a Preminger biography amongst all the other books in her apartment. It definitely helps that Ike Aronowitz, the captain of the Exodus, and Mordechai Rossman, the leader of the refugees, are on hand to be interviewed. But this is where the documentary ends, too, only disclosing the books Ruth Gruber wrote later and that she would get married and have two children. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

      Cast & Crew

      Show Less Cast & Crew Show More Cast & Crew

      Photos

      View All Ahead of Time photos

      Ahead of Time

      Ahead of Time (2009) Ahead of Time (2009) Ahead of Time (2009) Ahead of Time (2009) View more photos

      Movie Info

      Synopsis Ruth Gruber becomes the world's youngest Ph.D. at age 20 and a New York Herald Tribune reporter at age 24. She is given a secret mission as a trusted member of the Roosevelt administration during World War II.
      Director
      Robert Richman
      Producer
      Denise Benmosche, Patti Kenner, Doris Schechter
      Genre
      Documentary, Biography
      Original Language
      English
      Box Office (Gross USA)
      $33.0K
      Runtime
      1h 13m
      Most Popular at Home Now