A tense, loopy look at acting and writing, the movie is at times deliberately off-putting. But it’s anchored by a star-making turn from Helena Howard, who plays the fascinating, inscrutable figure at the story’s center.

if Madeline’s Madeline is sometimes unconvincing and frequently unnerving, it is never uninteresting. In its final moments it ascends into heady, almost visionary territory, like a balloon caught in a sudden updraft, and becomes a singular and strange experience.

A.O. Scott

The New York Times

Madeline is the kind of movie that won’t come anywhere near the mainstream, and clearly wasn’t meant to. But for the dozens of viewers it will almost certainly baffle or exasperate, there will be one or two completely captured by its peculiar magic.

Leah Greenblatt

Entertainment Weekly