Metacritic reviews

When you have an actor as suggestive as Kazan, swallowing up the lens with allure and complexity, your writer-director becomes superfluous.

This quietly poetic little gem contains many beautiful things, not least of which is leading lady Zoe Kazan, who lets every scene billow and swirl around her effortlessly.

There isn’t much to The Exploding Girl, but it’s blessedly compact, and owns its no-big-deal-ness.

The emotional detonations prove minor but movingly resonant in The Exploding Girl, an indie character study built four-square round Zoe Kazan's persuasive performance.

Girl is narratively slight, but aesthetically and psychologically complex. At times, it feels more like an illustrated audio collage than a movie.

Those who can hang on through the mumblecore-ish narrative languor of the nicely photographed The Exploding Girl will savor a very talented actress' sensitive portrait of youthful awkwardness.

Both comely leads offer engaging presences, and there’s some pretty imagery, shot adequately on HD, but it’s all so slight and featherweight one viewer sneezing could blow it all offscreen.

The Exploding Girl can also make you feel bad about wishing that she were just a little more interesting.

Further exploration of this psychological question might have made for a more substantial, less enervating artfilm. One less liable to be experienced as an approximation of cinematic waterboarding.

There is no hope on the horizon for movies as leaden as The Exploding Girl.