More than a journeyman rockumentary, “Poly Styrene” is a thoughtfully finessed filial reckoning: a daughter’s journey toward understanding her mother as a young artist and as a young woman of color.
83
Original-Cin
Original-Cin
The film adds an authentic emotional resonance to an important story about an exceptional human who was singing her mind at a pivotal moment in 20th-century pop-culture history.
As the story progresses, Bell’s decision to share the focus and to examine her relationship with her mother makes more sense, bringing an intimacy and tenderness to the rock documentary format.
78
Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché is the daughter cinematically coming to terms with their complicated relationship and with a figure who changed our culture.
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn Kenny
RogerEbert.comGlenn Kenny
This restless film is hardly content to present a portrait of an icon, instead insisting, with compassion and clear eyes, that icons are all too human too.
Bell, appearing on camera but speaking in voice-over like everybody else, makes the celebration fun and the tragedy bittersweet in this fine tribute to the mother she only got to know and appreciate “too late” to gain the full benefits of being raised by an icon.