Avis Metacritic

This is very likely going to be a crowd pleasing movie, one to hoot and holler about. Beneath all that hooting and hollering, though, lies a psychologically rich tale that I believe will reward multiple viewings.

What makes The Front Room universal is that it’s ultimately about power, about who runs the house.

Altogether, it's a solid dark comedy in the trappings of a psychological horror film.

The Front Room perhaps leans more toward the repulsive than the highbrow, potentially carving out its own distinct genre niche.

Though it features delightfully weird visuals and a stellar turn by Kathryn Hunter, The Front Room can’t find its identity, both on-screen and in its own marketing.

The Front Room does capture one delicious, rich truth: hell hath no fury like a mother-in-law scorned.

If there’s any food for thought in The Front Room, it’s the ongoing portrayal of old folks in the A24 catalog.

The Front Room has its virtues, including the funereal production design, with its forlorn rooms and faded wallpaper. Yet from its goo to boos, the whole enterprise is so familiar and at times rote that it feels as though Sam and Max Eggers haven’t so much directed the movie as reverse-engineered it.

Overwrought with visual style but relentlessly one-note, The Front Room is willfully annoying and dubious in its purpose.

With the exception of “The Tragedy of Macbeth” Oscar nominee Kathryn Hunter’s fiercely committed performance, much of this well-designed but boring film yields a shrug.