95% Searching for Sugar Man

All Critics (80) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (76) | Rotten (4)

[A] moving, lyrical account ...

Director Malik Bendjelloul's engaging, cleverly structured documentary about the legendary folk singer Rodriguez is shaped like a mystery.

If you like music, a good mystery or, better yet, a combination of both, you won't be disappointed.

An electrifying illustration of music's power to inspire and change lives on both sides of the footlights.

Submitted for your approval: one Sixto Rodriguez, a Mexican-American singer/songwriter whom Rod Serling would surely embrace, in or out of the Twilight Zone.

Beautiful and revelatory, Searching for Sugar Man also incorporates huge chunks of Rodriguez's music.

Two fans, Stephen Segerman and Craig Bertholomew, made it their business to find out exactly what happened to the singer Rodriguez. And, "Searching for Sugar Man" is the fruits of their labor. The fruit is tasting pretty sweet.

It starts as a bittersweet parable about the cruelty of commerce, but the wonder of "Searching for Sugar Man" will not soon slip away.

You watch "Searching for Sugar Man" at first fascinated by the mystery - what happened to Rodriguez? Where did he go? Then you become infuriated by its revelations of financial injustice.

An unexpectedly fresh nonfiction tale that rustles up deep feelings of a life stolen -- part docu-mystery, part uplifting valentine about the universality and resonating power of music.

Generates immediate interest in a forgotten artist, permitting the delicate yet barbed tunes to guide the experience, returning a sense of excitement to a man who unfortunately missed out on the highlights of his career.

It isn't that Searching for Sugar Man's plot developments are gotcha!-like, but this documentary does boast some bowl-you-over reveals best experienced blind.

Ultimately, for Rodriguez, musical redemption transcends the greed and soul-sapping breaks he encountered.

Rodriguez's life story is only part of what makes "Searching for Sugar Man" such a revelation.

The man and his music are worth checking out, even if the movie is not.

Ultimately an ode to Rodriguez's artistic modesty and the power of his music-a rousing crowd-pleaser that asks you to save questions for another film.

A rousing and all-encompassing look at a man who becomes even more of a mystery after we've gotten to know him.

An inspirational, spiritual experience which illustrates how the purity of soul required to produce the finest works is not dependent on material gain.

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