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Chained for Life
Directed by
Aaron Schimberg
Not Rated
2018
1h 31m
Drama
6.5
100%
58%
Add to Watchlist
A beautiful actress struggles to connect with her disfigured co-star on the set of a European auteur's English-language debut.
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Where to Watch Chained for Life
Hoopla
Free
Kanopy
Free
Apple TV
Buy $8.99
Rent $3.99
+3 more
Cast of Chained for Life
Jess Weixler
Mabel
Adam Pearson
Rosenthal
Stephen Plunkett
Max
Charlie Korsmo
Herr Director
Sari Lennick
Sarah
Joanna Arnow
Hospital Representative
Cosmo Bjorkenheim
Grip
Will Blomker
The Waiter
Frank Mosley
Frank
Keith Poulson
An Asshole
Daniel Patrick Carbone
Sprinting Producer
Rayvin Disla
The Butler
Daniel Gilchrist
Demby
Avi Glickstein
Dr. Glickstein
Miranda Gruss
Miriam
Rebecca Gruss
Eva
William Huntley
Aristotle
Joaquina Kalukango
Michelle
Lucy Kaminsky
A Nurse
Alison Midstokke
Stella
Sarah Grace Lee
The Unknown Woman
Jane Schoenbrun
Frantic Producer
Eleanore Pienta
Molly
Sayra Player
Beckett
Lauren Brown
Television Reporter
Jon Dieringer
Handsome Young Doctor
Colin Kane Healey
The Boom Operator
John Klacsmann
The Gaffer
Andrew Lampert
Eyewitness
Chained for Life Ratings & Reviews
AV Club
Katie Rife
The script's showbiz satire shows occasional flashes of savage brilliance, and the meta aspects are thoughtfully composed, if occasionally self-indulgent.
RogerEbert.com
Sheila O'Malley
A meaningful, moving, and often quite funny interrogation of beauty in the movies.
Austin Chronicle
Richard Whittaker
If the point of Tod Browning's Freaks was that it's what's inside that makes someone a monster, Chained for Life finds that everyone is awkward, everyone sees their own flaws, and everybody is just somebody.
Los Angeles Times
Robert Abele
Anchored by Weixler's and Pearson's natural charm, "Chained for Life" stands up as both a quiet ode to the experimental, dreamlike spirit of moviemaking and a seriocomic corrective to sentimentalized sideshow portrayals.
Vanity Fair
K. Austin Collins
Chained for Life's genius is in its playfulness, and in [director Aarpm] Schimberg's vision, lucid but disorienting, insistent that there be no boundary between the movie we're watching and the movie - movies? - his characters are making.
New York Times
Ben Kenigsberg
Schimberg's film is odd, darkly funny and - when it means to be - a little frightening.
TheWrap
Michael Nordine
Deeply weird without being difficult to follow, Chained also bears traces of David Lynch's The Elephant Man in its DNA - influences that guide Schimberg in a direction that's difficult to predict but fun to follow.
Variety
Dennis Harvey
At times Schimberg's gambits feel too coy, their aim too dry despite the sensational hooks. But more often than not, the immediate impact is engagingly droll, and there's no questioning the overall adventurousness, confidence and originality.
The Hollywood Reporter
Keith Uhlich
Chained for Life expands on the idea of difference as a humanizing catalyst, and cinema is its playground.
The New Yorker
Richard Brody
Schimberg creates a melodrama that reflects on the terms of melodrama while also pointing toward a grass-roots cinematic revolution-movies made by people about their own experiences.
Slant Magazine
Henry Stewart
Aaron Schimberg mostly avoids advocacy. Chained for Life isn't much of an argument, just a provocative discussion.
Village Voice
Calum Marsh
Chained for Life is a fine film about how disability is misappropriated.
Rob's Movie Vault
Rob Gonsalves
The performances in general are incisive, with the insecure Weixler playing deftly off the witty Pearson, who carries himself in a way that makes the case for disabled actors playing disabled characters all by itself.
HeraldNet (Everett, WA)
Robert Horton
Pearson radiates personality and humor, and his presence lifts the movie into interesting territory.
Elements of Madness
Douglas Davidson
One thing for certain is that [director Aaron] Schimberg's approach to filmmaking is a breath of fresh air, opting to make bold statements via biting satire carefully constructed in a manner to never make the subject matter the butt of the joke.
Screen Slate
Patrick Dahl
Aaron Schimberg's howlingly funny and deeply affecting second feature considers the ethical tightrope of transforming flesh-and-blood human beings into fodder for cinema.
Paste Magazine
Kyle Turner
What's so curious about Chained for Life, and its effortlessness in gliding from the real to the surreal, is how easy it is for its cast of differently-abled actors to seize the camera and its gaze.
Cinemalogue
Todd Jorgenson
... blurs fantasy and reality to an almost disorienting degree. But it also finds a dark sense of humor while turning cynicism into compassion.
Counterpunch.org
Louis Proyect
Brilliant deconstruction of Todd Browning's "Freaks".
High on Films
Shikhar Verma
Referencing numerous movies and the entire subculture, Schimberg pays a peculiarly satisfying homage to the everyday people and the little stories inside their heads.
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