EW
Like his 2006 Oscar-winning “Al Gore explains global warming” treatise, An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary is a forceful and exquisitely made piece of advocacy journalism. But while that earlier film had its share of doubters, detractors, and head-in-the-sand deniers, his inspiring portrait of Pakistani teenager and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is impossible to take issue with.
The A.V. Club
Education activist and all-around role model Malala Yousafzai is eminently likable, so it’s something of a perverse achievement that He Named Me Malala, the latest feature-length campaign video from Davis Guggenheim (Waiting For Superman, An Inconvenient Truth), manages to tell her story in a way that’s bound to leave critically-minded viewers with a sour aftertaste. A puff piece for someone who doesn’t need one, Malala wraps Yousafzai’s life in media-circuit testimonials and fairy-tale-like animated sequences that stop just short of drawing an aureola of fire around her.
Variety: Eighty-seven minutes in the company of 18-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai is time very well spent, and that alone merits a recommendation for “He Named Me Malala,” an expectedly stirring portrait of the exceedingly smart and courageous Pakistani teenager who defied the Taliban and lived to tell the tale. But while it’s difficult to feel anything other than awe and respect for this genuinely inspiring figure, whose advocacy for women’s education worldwide has made her a hero to millions and a target for many, it’s also hard not to wish director Davis Guggenheim had approached Yousafzai’s still-growing legacy with a bit less heart-tugging slickness and a greater willingness to delve beneath the surface. Still, as fronted by an internationally beloved subject whose warmth, intelligence and fierce humanity all but radiate from the screen, this classy, crowd-pleasing Fox Searchlight item could emerge as one of the better-attended theatrical documentaries of recent vintage.
THR
Female-centric films definitely play a strong role at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, which showcases such movies as Suffragette, Carol, Room and documentaries about Peggy Guggenheim and Ingrid Bergman, among others. Many people know the basic elements of the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But He Named Me Malala retells that story in a deft and affecting way. Director Davis Guggenheim, who made the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth and the controversial Waiting for Superman, does some of his most heartfelt work in this tribute to Malala and her entire family.
