"[9] The Los Angeles Times wrote that Ithaka "isn’t as effective an advocacy doc as it could be, sometimes feeling trapped between wanting to intellectualize with onscreen text and contextualized history and looking for observational moments that crystallize the pain and concern for the Assange family."
[12] The Times gave it three stars and called it fascinating but said it was undone by "John Shipton, through whose eyes the film effectively unfolds."
According to The Times, Shipton talked freely "about the geopolitical implications of WikiLeaks and his son’s journalistic idealism" but was "fractious, refuses to answer personal questions and consistently slides into grand, self-regarding, allusion-filled prolixity.
They described it as "Julian Assange’s story told through the eyes of his family," and that "it is most worthwhile when director Ben Lawrence admits that.
"[1] The Green Left praised the documentary but noted that "Shipton and Moris are the ones who provide the balancing acts" in the narrative.