Unknown Pleasures (film) - Reception

Reception

Unknown Pleasures was relatively well received by western critics but with qualifications. Upon its premiere at the New York Film Festival, then New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell commented on the film, noting that even if "the world doesn't need another picture on disaffected youth...Unknown Pleasures is about more than alienation." Stylistically, however, Mitchell felt that Jia's long-takes and slow pans started to feel repetitive, a sort of "reductive neo-realism." The Village Voice's J. Hoberman gave the film a much stronger review than many of his contemporaries, arguing that Unknown Pleasures was "Jia's most concentrated evocation of contemporary China's spiritual malaise."

The film was not universally praised, however, and many critics found significant flaws in the film's style and pacing. One common complaint was that like the film's aimless protagonists, Unknown Pleasures seemed lost in its own narrative. One critic argues that the film's story "goes nowhere" and as a result the audience never "understand the motivation of the characters." The industry magazine Variety also gave the film only a middling review, with a similar complaint that the film "is far more diluted thematically, touching on a number of interesting points but failing to bring them together in any cohesive way." Two internet review aggregates reflect the film's somewhat average impression among western critics; coincidentally, both Metacritic (ten reviews) and Rotten Tomatoes (twenty-eight reviews) give Unknown Pleasures scores of "61" (out of 100), or "Generally favorable reviews" and "fresh," respectively.