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Poster for What Is It?

What Is It?

2005 · 1h 12m · Unrated Drama, Fantasy
Directed by Crispin Glover

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Overview

The adventures of a young man whose principle interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by a hubristic, racist inner psyche.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
50%
Tomatometer
Fresh

It's clear that [director] Glover is less interested in narrative than in rekindling a rich midnight-movie/avant-garde tradition that encompasses everything from Maya Deren and Jack Smith to Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch.

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly
Rotten

Glover, who appears in the film as a kind of barbarian dictator-auteur, lacks both the self-imposed ideological innocence and the talent for composing sounds and images of David Lynch.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Rotten

A shocker, but not a world-class one.

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

His directorial debut, What Is It? -- which plays as part of a double bill with a live, enthusiastically performed slide show in which Mr. Glover displays pages from his recent series of books -- is just as unclassifiable as he is.

Laura Kern, New York Times

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