Critical response
Camp X-Ray premiered at Sundance Film Festival with generally positive reviews, with specific praise for Stewart and Moaadi's performances. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives it a rating of 74%, with 57 film critics giving the film a positive review and it has an average rating of 6.4 out of 10. The critics' consensus states: "Camp X-Ray's treatment of its subject verges on the shallow, but benefits greatly from a pair of impressive performances from Kristen Stewart and Peyman Moaadi." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 54 out of 100, based on 25 critics.
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter gave a positive review, calling it "A somber but cogent drama that uses its setting as a provocative backdrop rather than a debate point" and praising the lead actors by saying that "Stewart, delivering perhaps her best screen work to date as an inexperienced military guard, against an equally compelling characterization from Maadi as the long-term detainee who pierces her shell." Marlow Stern of The Daily Beast wrote, "by the end of Camp X-Ray, you're won over by Stewart's layered turn as Cole, and Maadi's as the defiant Ali. It's a role perfectly suited to her strengths—vulnerability and hidden courage—and few young actresses, with the exception of Jennifer Lawrence, can hold a close-up like Stewart." Rob Nelson in his review of the film for Variety said that "Camp X-Ray is most commendable for believably depicting the U.S. military from a female's point of view" and that "The two leads (Stewart and Maadi) are excellent and play off each other deftly." Scott Mendelson of Forbes wrote, "Kristen Stewart is engaging and Peyman Moaadi avoids the "noble savage" cliché with ease. The performances are stronger than the film which contains them, but since the picture is mostly a two-hander that's not entirely a fatal flaw." Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of five, and praised Sattler's direction, as well as Stewart and Maadi. Seitz wrote of Stewart: "There are silent film-quality close-ups where you can read every fluctuation in her mood even though she's barely moving a muscle. This is a true movie star performance." Seitz remarked, "The relationship between Amy, a strong-silent type, and Ali, a chatterbox provocateur, has a '70s-movie feel."
Xan Brooks of The Guardian gave the film two out of five, echoing praise for the acting, saying "Moaadi (so good as the shifty dad in the A Separation) is suitably anguished as Ali, while Stewart copes well as his pensive prison guard, constantly trying to act more tough than she is. It's a role that reminds us what a fine performer she was in the likes of Into the Wild and Adventureland", but criticized the film in general, saying "the supporting players are little more than equal opportunity stereotypes (frothing Islamists; brutish grunts), while the dialogue is a clatter of cookie-cutter exposition, intent on telling us everything but explaining very little". Eric Kohn of Indiewire criticized the screenplay and direction by saying that "Sattler's frustratingly on-the-nose screenplay" and "It's a powerful assertion about the prospects of being trapped by misguided intentions, which sadly applies to Camp X-Ray itself" but ultimately praised Stewart's performance. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a negative review by saying that "it's also a flatly made movie" and said that Stewart was miscast in the role as "she has no toughness, no moxie, no callouses on her hide".
