Vadim Rizov’s review published on Letterboxd:
If I believed in the possibility of "revolutionary cinema" — i.e. that a movie could effectuate meaningful social realignment through some combination of anti-establishment sentiment, calls to action, organized presentation of the dominant hierarchy's offences and a demonstration of what praxis might look like — I'd have to conclude The Strawberry Statement is straight-up defeatist and counter-revolutionary. Proof that cliched imagery of "the '60s" isn't a retroactive creation but was present right in the moment: long-haired boys and beautiful girls with some sad-sack Benjamin Braddocks sprinkled in, grooving together to endless amounts of CSNY, an RFK poster on our hero's walls confirming the dream's already dead. Occasionally "satirical" (a rowing coxswaing yelling "In! Out!" over and over, because haha sexual sublimation) which isn't much of an improvement over watching charmless poker-faced Bruce Davison moon over Kim Darby. It's very much the work of company men trying to Rap With The Kids, though its ham-handed attempts to capture the spirit of the moment have their own fascination: watching this, it's possible to imagine what it would've been like to be an earnest young counterculture warrior in 1970, go to the theater with grim anticipation of watching someone not Get It and afterwards feel inevitably patronized and ripped-off. (Don't ask me if I believe in the possibility of revolutionary cinema.)