I Am Victoria; Cruel Summer

“I Am Victoria was a sparse film – there was a distinct lack of music and there were long, but not uncomfortable, moments of silence – but it still managed to feel claustrophobic. The action never left Victoria’s home, which began to feel more like a prison as time went on; at one point she cracked open a window for a moment’s respite and fresh air.”
Emily Baker, The i

“Without a script, the actors are sometimes groping around, repeating lines hopefully, looking for a way out of each scene like people trying doors in a dark room.  What’s the point of improvisation anyhow? No one hires Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and tells her: ‘Just make up a tune.’ The sloppiness is made worse by handheld camerawork and tight close-ups.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The excruciating soirée became a sort of Abigail’s Party without the laughs. There was literally no levity here, unless you count when Victoria sank her teeth into a carton of Alpro oat milk to stop herself screaming.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The whole thing hung on the performance of Jones, and it was a masterclass in gilded fragility”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph 

“Its depiction of a vilified young woman at the centre of a salacious crime during the peak of Clinton-era tabloid culture presented a chance to draw critical parallels with the present, which it did not take. Still, even if it lacks the sophistication of Stranger Things or the bite of Euphoria, Cruel Summer does provide interesting observations about the ways young lives are warped by trauma, and is a story that, while it lasts – like those long hot summer months of our teenage pasts – feels suffocating, confusing, hysterically dramatic, and compulsive.”
Sarah Carson, The i

“Once you do lean in, accept the extra viewing labour and prepare to be occasionally baffled, Cruel Summer works both as an intriguing mystery and as an onion-layered study in the mutability of human relationships.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian 

“Cruel Summer unfolds like a beach read, dropping outlandish plot twists every 15 minutes or so. That it’s not all a bit much is mostly down to the show’s editing, which cross-cuts elegantly between summers and their changing emotional temperatures. It also bears a sharp understanding of teenage transformation. Here, seemingly innocuous changes – of a haircut, a dress or a friendship – hold enormous weight.”
Adam White, The Independent