Rick Burin’s review published on Letterboxd:
Perhaps I might have had a better time if I was more interested in fonts. What promises to be an intriguing look at the most divisive typeface this side of Comic Sans – the all-conquering Helvetica – too often turns pretentious and self-indulgent when trying to evaluate the role that fonts play in articulating, obscuring or subverting the message they’re meant to convey; in theory a very interesting idea. Much of the problem lies with the interviewees, who are mostly pretty insufferable, either talking very pedantically about letter shape or spouting hideously superficial Sugar Ape-like bollocks. One very confusing American graphic designer says, hopefully joking, that Helvetica was “the font of the Iraq War”. Tsk, you can sponsor anything these days. There are some insights about the homogeneity of corporate identity, and the very likeable David Carson tells an amusing story about a Bryan Ferry interview, but the film is saturated with a self-importance that isn’t merited, loaded down as it is with industry chat, vague historical analysis and endless footage of signs written in the titular font. It’s also a bit difficult to tell what most of the people are saying (I had the subtitles on; they weren’t in Helvetica), while the guy who argues that a font on your MySpace profile (lol, MySpace) is as a great an expression of identity as your haircut has terrible hair. I got a bit bored.