Critical reception Review aggregation website
Metacritic, which assigns a
weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 56 based on 14 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average" reviews.
Oprah Winfrey, who attended the premiere and interviewed Knowles before its screening called it "fiercely empowering," and said "she shocked me, I was in tears. ... She did an amazing job ... I think this documentary is a game changer."
Billboard also praised it, saying, "
Life is But a Dream is a pleasant surprise of a watch ... The well-oiled, media-trained, hit-making machine has a heart. And it's huge." Ken Tucker of
Entertainment Weekly gave a positive review saying, "What gives this film grit are the visual displays of her work ethic and her fierce determination to 'bring R&B music back' to the center of current pop music, to 'forget being cool' and reveal naked passion." Adam Markovitz of the same publication described the documentary as a "delicate mix of the calculated and confessional, designed to let us just far enough into Knowles' world to keep us interested in her next tour, album, soda allegiance, etc." Carrie Battan from
Pitchfork wrote that "there's no unturned insight, no secret to be discovered in this documentary besides the fact that she's simply everything we want her to be." Tom Gliatto of
People magazine described the documentary as "gauzy" and "pretty". Gerrick D. Kennedy from the
Los Angeles Times wrote that the documentary "remains a victory for her fans. Casual viewers will most likely glean the same sense of the superstar's life as one might from a magazine feature. But for serious fans of the fiercely private superstar, this remains a window into her life."
The Hollywood Reporters David Rooney said, "this is less a documentary portrait than a micromanaged video diary exploring the R&B superstar's relationship with her laptop. The HBO film will be candy to her fan base; just don't expect startling insights into the woman behind the talent." Tirdad Derakhshani of the
Philadelphia Media Network wrote that
Life Is But a Dream "is a carefully filtered snapshot of an artist who has enough power to become maker of her own myth." Writing for
Zap2it, Geoff Berkshire called it a "vanity project and calculated act of image control. The only thing revealed by the film -- co-directed, co-written and co-executive produced by Beyoncé herself -- is a narcissistic inability to give up that desire for control." Television critic
Alessandra Stanley from
The New York Times gave a negative review for the film, writing, "[
Life is But a Dream] is as contrived as
Madonna: Truth or Dare, but probably for good reason it is neither daring nor entirely truthful. It's an infomercial, not just about Beyoncé's talent onstage but her authenticity behind the scenes. She is a people-pleasing diva and she wants to keep it that way."
Ratings The documentary garnered 2.3 million viewers for the initial broadcast. It was the largest audience for an
HBO documentary since Nielsen revised its method of measuring viewership in 2004. The episode of ''
Oprah's Next Chapter'' in which Knowles appeared to discuss the film was watched by 1.3 million viewers. == Home media ==