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Slow Machine

Play trailer 2:15 Poster for Slow Machine Released Jun 2, 2021 1h 12m Mystery & Thriller Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
83% Tomatometer 12 Reviews 60% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings
Stephanie, a vibrant actress, meets Gerard, an NYPD counter-terrorism specialist who's an aficionado of experimental theater.

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Slow Machine

Critics Reviews

View All (12) Critics Reviews
Vikram Murthi AV Club Slow Machine argues that a creative life inevitably offers multiple paths, but the consequences of one's choices can never be forgotten. Rated: A- Jun 5, 2021 Full Review Carson Lund Slant Magazine The film navigates a tricky space between pathos and absurdity and often turns on a dime from one to the other. Rated: 3/4 Jun 3, 2021 Full Review Kristen Yoonsoo Kim New York Times Difficult to describe and confounding to follow, the film is best when you submit to the surreal nature of it; then, you will be open to witnessing one of this year's most mesmerizing movies unfold. Jun 3, 2021 Full Review Ben Flanagan Vague Visages “The conspiratorial is everywhere in ‘Slow Machine’ but doesn’t come into focus.” Feb 10, 2024 Full Review Filipe Freitas Always Good Movies A small, brazenly offbeat mumblecore film shot in 16mm and permeated with a mix of composed and experimental quirkiness. Rated: 4/5 Oct 19, 2021 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Odd-ball character-study film. Rated: B+ Sep 5, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (3) audience reviews
Audience Member Loved it! Great acting. Great music. Loved the direction and the look of this 16mm film. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Audience Member This looks like a 16mm indie film from the '70s, but most of those films made some sense. This one, funded by a kickstarter campaign, does not. Chloe Sevigny makes a five minute appearance in the middle of the film in a scene that is a total non sequitur. Clearly she was doing a favor for a friend, and she's the only interesting thing in this mashup of rambling dialogue and unfocused plotting. If you are silly enough to start watching this film, you will understand how bad it is within the first 10 minutes. If you stay longer, that's on you. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review brent m Experimentalism in cinema is certainly laudable, but, at some point, a project needs to adopt some kind of focus to effectively maintain viewer interest. And the stumbling attempts at doing so in this indie comedy/psychological thriller unfortunately keep this effort from successfully living up to its potential. Inspired by films of the low-budget mumblecore genre, directors Joe Denardo and Paul Felten tell a somewhat fractured tale of a paranoid experimental theater actress and her tension-filled involvement with a New York counter-intelligence operative with questionable credentials, a relationship that results in calamity and her need to hide out in a suburban safe house with a group of hapless musicians. While this offering is amply peppered with offbeat humor, a series of insightful monologues and dialogues, an edgy atmospheric feel, and a thoughtful meditation on matters of paranoia and mortality, the picture regrettably goes off on a number of pointless tangents and tells its story with a skewed, sometimes-fuzzy timeline. In many ways, it feels like all the parts are here; they're just not assembled as well as they might have been, especially in the final act. Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, Denardo and Felten would appear to have a promising future once they work out the kinks and refine their craft. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Slow Machine

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Movie Info

Synopsis Stephanie, a vibrant actress, meets Gerard, an NYPD counter-terrorism specialist who's an aficionado of experimental theater.
Director
Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo
Producer
Kyle Hepp, Shrihari Sathe, Caroline von Kuhn, Alex Witherill
Screenwriter
Paul Felten
Distributor
Grasshopper Film
Genre
Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jun 2, 2021, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 3, 2021
Runtime
1h 12m
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