After the film's premiere, Loveridge said that his intention with the film was to give background and context to Maya (M.I.A.) as a person, in the current time period where "media moves so fast". He had disagreed with media coverage of her being presented as a "controversial pop star" without an audience understanding her origins. He tried to centre the film more on the backstory of Maya, her upbringing, migration to the United Kingdom and the relationship between her father, his political activism and the civil conflict in Sri Lanka in 2010. This was distinct to the expectations that M.I.A. had for the project, Loveridge responded and said during the same time period he had "been drowned in MIA and her story and like my all day every day for the last four years". She remarked to Andreas Hale (
Billboard): "[Loveridge] took all the shows where I look good and tossed it in the bin. Eventually, if you squash all the music together from the film, it makes for about four minutes. I didn't know that my music wouldn't really be a part of this. I find that to be a little hard, because that is my life." She later remarked that she felt Loveridge had "boiled the film down to an essence of what people already know about me" but that she "could still make 20 other films and not crossover with what Steve has made". Loveridge said that his film "wasn't about music", and that it was necessary to keep distance between himself and the artist during the editing process, and avoid the subject of the film influencing their portrayal as any documentary filmmaker would. and a weighted average of 70/100 on
Metacritic, with the former site reporting the critical consensus as, "
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. makes up in energy and ambition what it lacks in objective distance, offering fans a personal perspective on a singular career." Reviewers praised its candid portrayal of M.I.A. with the film's focus being weighted towards its subject's life, identity and ideas, but gave mixed opinions on the storytelling threads presented by Loveridge using archival material. Spencer Kornhaber (
The Atlantic) wrote that the film is a "fantastic and kinetic fulfillment of Maya Arulpragasam's desire, back then, to be heard as more than an entertainer". Charlie Phillips (
The Guardian) criticised that M.I.A. received no directorial credit, given that from her own footage is where the film "sources its greatest energy" but that "for once [M.I.A.] truly gets to control her own narrative". However, the visual quality of the footage used concerned other critics. There was fault found with
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. for lacking exploration of M.I.A.'s musical process, style or production, atypical of biographical documentaries in the music genre. == Awards ==