Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Micah-js22 Finding Vivian Maier shoulders the task of condensing a life time of over 100,000 photographs in to an hour and a half. And overall it does a pretty good job, providing a lovely showcase of the combination of old school charm and timeless beauty that has given Maier such posthumous popularity. Each shot also does a good job of contributing to the analysis of what the content of the photographs say about the woman behind the camera. The interviews are also full of much lively character. And the insight they are able to gather at times from simple things like facial expressions and tonal delivery is reminiscent of the distinct human touch present in Vivian's photographs. The only thing holding it back from being absolutely fantastic is how overplayed the mysterious aspects of Maier's life can be. Given that the mysteriousness behind her work is what gives it much of its allure, the film makers seem reluctant to fully realize Vivian as a concrete character. In a movie filled with thought provoking questions Finding Vivian Maier scarcely provides any answers. Why are the surviving members of Maier's family barely interviewed at all? Why are the thousands of recordings of Vivian speaking only used sparingly? Why does the film only dedicate a few minutes to the signs of mental disorders and abusive tendencies Maier showed? I can only conclude that the film makers wanted the mysticism that surrounds Maier to remain in tact. The movie still provides a reasonably good account of Maier's life, there are just some points where I wish there was more closure and fully realized concepts . It is still worth watching though for the thoughtfully put together photographs and interviews.

Screenthoughts Vivian Maier, living incognito as a nanny, led a mysterious double life – unbeknownst to all, she was a prodigious street photographer, taking more than 100,000 pictures in her lifetime. She died without resources – and without recognition. Enter John Maloof, who years later, bought a box of her negatives at an auction, and discovered what he had – spending countless hours devoted to bringing her work to the public. Thanks to his efforts, Vivian Maier is now considered one of the major photographic portraitists of the last century. Fiction, you ask? Nope, an Oscar-nominated documentary. Finding Vivian Maier is part mystery, part documentary, part biography, and never boring.O'Toole likes the story behind the work. Hollister is all about the genius of the work itself. While this is one podcast where imagery might have made it better, the descriptions of the work by Hollister and the story behind the artist by O'Toole more than make up for the fact that you will have to rush to your computer and look up the work long before the podcast is over.Podcast available at - http://screenthoughts.net/podcast/finding- vivian-maier/

Red_Identity There is definitely an odd atmosphere that runs throughout the edges of this film, and it really does work in the context of what it's about. It's basically informative until it's just some kind of real mystery, with a woman that might've, most likely, had secrets of some kind. The real-life story is fascinating enough, and you wonder if some of the things could've even been set up. it sounds like the work of fiction, the dark shadow that is really built up with this woman at the core that's about ready to jump and lurch forward at you. It's intriguing, if maybe at times the film is too long to even warrant its short running time. Regardless, it mostly works so that's a small complaint.

Roland E. Zwick The documentary "Finding Vivian Maier," written and directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, tells the fascinating tale of a woman who lived and died in obscurity - then, through a serendipitous fluke of fate and an undiscovered talent for photography, became well known and celebrated long after her death. So much so that they even went and made a movie about her.The saga began when Maloof, a young historian/filmmaker, bought a box of negatives at an auction in 2007. The negatives, it turned out, belonged to a woman named Vivian Maier, born in 1926, who had spent most of her adult life taking pictures of the world around her - more than 150,000 of them to be exact. Vivian never shared her work with the people in her life, even though the images were of a quality to rival some of the world's greatest and most famous photographers. Intrigued by what he had unearthed - the treasure trove included many 8 MM films as well - Maloof decided to re-create the life of this talented woman by seeking out those who knew her and using their knowledge of her to help piece it all together. It seems that Vivian spent her life as a nanny to the well-off families of Chicago; in fact, she was hired by no less a figure than Phil Donahue to look after his four children for a short time.Through the movie, there emerges a portrait of an eccentric, intensely private woman, who never married and was seemingly devoid of family, who kept her personal background a secret, frequently used pseudonyms, affected a phony French accent (despite the fact that she was a native New Yorker), voiced strong opinions on politics and society, and traveled the world with only a camera for a companion, continually documenting, through both stills and film, the world as she and few others saw it.One of the interviewees describes Vivian's work as reflecting "the bizarreness of life, the incongruencies of life, and the unappealing- ness of human beings." Yet, what comes through most vividly in her work is its humanity, her ability to capture the essence of people from all ages and walks of life in a single moment in time.However, if you thought "Finding Vivian Maier" would turn out to be one of those unalloyed "feel good" movie experiences, you'd be sadly mistaken. For not everything we learn about the woman behind the camera is uplifting, charming and inspiring. In fact, the movie takes a decidedly dark turn in the latter half, as a number of the children she oversaw recount some of the abuse - both physical and emotional - they suffered at her hands.She is described by some who knew her as "damaged" and "past eccentric,' riddled with mental illness, paranoia, and a compulsion for hoarding.She became more and more isolated from the world as she entered old age, reduced to dumpster-diving for food. and becoming increasingly reliant on the kindness of strangers before death finally came for her in 2009.Yet, now her work adorns the walls of many an art gallery the world over, as ever-increasing legions of admirers come to appreciate her talent.For all its speculation, the movie demonstrates at least a certain amount of self-awareness by admitting that it may be a trifle unfair to judge a person and the life she led based entirely on how others saw and felt about her, without the person being given a chance to clarify or defend herself. In a way, Vivian Maier is a stand-in for all the nameless, faceless people who surround us unnoticed, the vast majority of people who live their lives in relative obscurity and leave little real mark on the world after they're gone. Except, thanks to the fickle finger of fate and her own unique talent, Vivian did leave a mark, one that will be admired and appreciated for generations to come.