Best Boy Reviews

"Sometimes there are movies that absorb you so completely that you forget you're watching them: They're simply happening to you. Ira Wohl's Best Boy is a movie like that. To see it is to participate in the lives of other people and to walk out of the theatre having learned just a little more about being human."
         - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times  

"Fine, unusually moving example of documentary filmmaking . . . don't miss it!"
         - Vincent Canby, New York Times

"Best Boy is a delicate, open film about a difficult, closed-away subject, and our emotions are so involved in its every scene. The picture is never tough or falsely hearty; it does not 'speak plainly' about mental retardation: there are no data in it; and Ira Wohl does not seem to intend us to feel either good or bad about Philly and his life with his family. He has been so calm and thoughtful and intelligent in shooting and editing the film that it imposes a sense of assurance about its honesty and the validity of our feelings for it.” 
         - The New Yorker

"Best Boy encompasses the deepest emotions. It surveys so much feeling with such eloquence it could never be described as simply a documentary."
         - Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

"What makes Best Boy so remarkable is the affection and humanity shown by Wohl, who never exploits his aunt and uncle's grief, but effectively evokes the loveliness and despair they feel as they slowly drift toward death and find the courage to let Philly go."
         - San Francisco Examiner