Critics reviews

We are currently living in a technocratic "results society," in which ideas are valued mostly for the amount of capital they can generate. As budgets are slashed and tenure comes under attack and various institutions worldwide, Garcia's film pays homage to the joy of literature as an end in itself. But at the same time, The Joycean Society also depicts a rather bleak, ironic future...

Dora García has made an irresistible portrait of this “Joycean Society” in this very well crafted documentary. As the sudden explosions of energy happens in the room, the camera strives to catch this candid exchange of ideas with a daze-like movement and the wonder of discovery (in the out of and in focus shots) on someone who is being treated to one of the most stimulating, most bizarre experiences of life... [It's] one of the most stimulating short films in this last decade.

Dora Garcia’s The Joycean Society comes in at just over an hour, which only adds to its air of happy slightness... The funny, fussy wordplay stays in focus, though the camera is always in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not clear if this is strategy or maladroitness – though it happens to be the perfect approach to a film about fumbling in the dark.

[The Joycean Society] struck me as Room 237 for the literary set—its subjects have plunged themselves so deeply into the choppy waters of Jimmy J.’s prose that they sometimes forget to come up for breath. I think Garcia filmed their meetings beautifully—it takes a certain amount of skill to keep a confab between even the cheeriest Irish senior citizens from becoming visually drab—and at just a shade over 60 minutes, the movie didn’t wear out its welcome.