The film was met with "general acclaim" when the singer-turned-documentarist presented it recently at the Festival de Cannes, according to The Guardian. No specifics are given as to what exactly this means or who's been generally handing out the acclaim. One early review after the Tribeca Film Festival praises Madonna's goals, but calls the documentary itself "much too facile" and refers to her narration as "clipped," "insincere," and "self-serving" when she compares the plight of the Malawi people to her own experiences with suffering. Another review criticizes her narrative for being "delivered with so little enthusiasm, or at least engagement" and calls the script (written by Madonna herself) "rife with banalities." Perhaps the audiences in Cannes were more receptive, as those sound pretty much like the opposite of "acclaim" to me.

Madonna is no stranger to criticism, of course. Before the release of 1993's Body of Evidence, novelist Patricia Cornwell had the prescience to make sure the movie bore a disclaimer stating that it was not based on her book of the same title, and you could just about line the Bronx Zoo's bird houses with all the bad reviews for Swept Away. Compared to that, the negative critique for her documentary seems no more dramatic than turning another year older.

For more Cannes Film Festival news, check out The Art of the Cannes!