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Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
Directed by
Griffin Dunne
PG-13
2017
1h 32m
Documentary
,
Biography
7.5
89%
80%
7.3
Add to Watchlist
Literary icon Joan Didion reflects on her remarkable career and personal struggles in this intimate documentary directed by her nephew, Griffin Dunne.
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Where to Watch Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
Netflix
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Cast of Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
Joan Didion
Self
Griffin Dunne
Self / Director
Hilton Als
Self
David Hare
Self
Phyllis Rifield
Self
Amy Robinson
Self
Shelley Wanger
Self
Harrison Ford
Self
Tom Brokaw
Self
Susanna Moore
Self
Vanessa Redgrave
Self
Robert Silvers
Self
Calvin Trillin
Self
Anna Wintour
Self
Patricia Hearst
Self
Janis Joplin
Self
Tuesday Weld
Self
Jim Morrison
Self
Bobby Beausoleil
Self
Oliver North
Self
See all
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold Ratings & Reviews
AV Club
Alex McLevy
How vital is Didion? Harrison Ford shows up to discuss being her carpenter in '70s Malibu, and all you want is to get back to Joan.
Village Voice
April Wolfe
Director Dunne continues in this family tradition here -- he respects Didion enough to let her decide how much she wants to reveal, and Didion trusts Dunne to get it right on the screen.
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
Christopher Frizzelle
You might almost think, if you've read her books, there isn't anything you don't already know. You'd be wrong.
Seven Days (VT)
Rick Kisonak
Repeated viewing tends to suggest some validity to Barbara Harrison's 1980 assessment that Didion's "subject is always herself" and her writing "sounds good" but "doesn't signify."
The Atlantic
Megan Garber
The Center Will Not Hold is instead a celebration of the thing that existed far before the internet came along: Joan, the person.
leonardmaltin.com
Leonard Maltin
Griffin Dunne's exemplary film has made me want to dive into Joan Didion's work; that's the highest compliment I could pay any documentary
The New Republic
Jacob Bacharach
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold is sometimes beautiful, mostly workmanlike. As a document of the very old recounting her dreams at breakfast, it's a bit of a marvel.
RogerEbert.com
Godfrey Cheshire
A fond and appreciative portrait of one of American journalism's superstars.
NPR
Andrew Lapin
Dunne seems to have an intuition about how far he can push his aunt on any given subject, and a natural protectiveness around her legacy.
Vox
Alissa Wilkinson
I can't shake the feeling that we ought to have been listening to Joan Didion more carefully all along.
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Access is almost everything for a documentary filmmaker, and the entree Griffin Dunne had to his celebrated subject makes all the difference in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold."
Dallas Morning News
Chris Vognar
This is an intensive appreciation of perhaps the greatest living American essayist, and one of the best ever. It plays like a finely tuned authorized biography.
New York Times
Glenn Kenny
Ms. Didion's triumph, as a writer and a human being, has been to take the age for what it is, to pinpoint how she saw it, and to stick it out.
Slant Magazine
Greg Cwik
It's an exercise in joviality, unflinching in its love for Joan Didion, and unwilling to be much more.
The New Yorker
Richard Brody
The result, though loving and celebratory, is closer to an official portrait than an illuminating biography.
Variety
Owen Gleiberman
A documentary that's incisive and haunting, like Didion's best writing.
The Young Folks
Kristen Lopez
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold will inspire you to seek out her work and question what centers you to the universe.
RogerEbert.com
Odie Henderson
Some of the things I'd heard here would not leave me alone for days.
The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck
While the film proves a less than definitive portrait of its subject, it certainly delivers a plethora of fascinating and amusing moments along the way.
TheWrap
Dan Callahan
Because of her own questioning presence on screen and also her voice-over when she reads from her own work, Didion seems to be in charge of this movie, and she does not flatter herself.
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