36
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 50The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungThe Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungIt's a messy, childish scrawl of a film, but it is high on energy.
- 50Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneyNot so much bleeding edge as screeching edge, Gia Coppola’s Mainstream is a frenetic piece of pop-art social satire that strives to be super-current but feels oddly traditional beneath its eye-searing, pixel-popping surface.
- 50RogerEbert.comRogerEbert.comMainstream may be up-to-date on stylistic grounds, but its narrative could use refreshing.
- Mainstream feels far more like a callow freshman effort, frantically tricked out with visual gimmicks and affected whimsy, none of which freshen up its palpably millennial stance on that ever-renewing question of whether or not the kids are all right.
- 42The A.V. ClubKatie RifeThe A.V. ClubKatie RifeThe problem with Mainstream is it isn’t plugged deep enough into the culture it’s satirizing to really even know what its target is, let alone how to hit it.
- 40VarietyJessica KiangVarietyJessica KiangA brittle, exasperated satire on social media celebrity, her sophomore film, like the tacky messiah it creates in Andrew Garfield’s YouTube sensation, soon becomes the very thing it sets out to expose: a glittery, jangly image machine that manufactures little of actual substance, except the conclusion that social media = bad.
- 25Slant MagazineSteven ScaifeSlant MagazineSteven ScaifeThe film has the knowing swagger of something on the cutting edge but none of the self-awareness to realize it’s late to the party.
- 16The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Film StageRory O'ConnorIndeed, the strangest thing about Mainstream (and it is a strange, strange film) is just how out of touch it feels. Granted, if it were easy to make a viral video we would all be doing it; yet what Coppola and her team have come up with is just so lame and off the mark and nauseatingly self-satisfied.