"As much as I appreciate the bluesy style that July Talk brings to the Toronto alternative rock scene, I’m now convinced that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they were to go on indefinite hiatus tomorrow. If for nothing else, it would mean that Leah Goldstein could continue her acting career. Diamond Tongues gives her an opportunity to showcase her talents outside of music, and she absolutely knocks it out of the park..."

“DIAMOND TONGUES, an alternately sweet and slashing microbudget comedy from Canada, makes a great vehicle for Leah Goldstein, a musician and performance artist appearing in her first movie. As Edith, an aspiring actress who seems blind to her deficits and personal flaws, Ms. Goldstein gives a performance that requires her to swing between disarming and loathsome. She demonstrates impressive skill in slowly peeling away her character’s charm..."

"The film purposely indulges Hollywood formula only to subvert it, intent on allowing its main character to organically, if excruciatingly, find her own way out of life’s quagmire..."

"As much as anything, this is a film that has heard every excuse about why life isn’t working out quite the way you want, been told all the just-so stories of the clever and talented whom the world has failed to recognize. Even if you’re right about the world, Diamond Tongues seems to be saying you still have to find a way to live in it. The saving grace is that trying is all that is necessary..."

"Goldstein...is excellent in the role, rendering Edith’s monstrous ambition with relatable (and frequently terrifying) conviction. At bars and parties, Edith mingles with more successful peers as jealousy begins to manifest itself, sociopathically, as sabotage. The result suggests All About Eve by way of The King of Comedy: contempt and envy reign and the threat of disaster closely follows..."

"Thanks to [Leah] Goldstein’s performance and a smart screenplay that knows its subject well — the life of struggling thespians — it’s a film of dark wit and uncommon depth..."

An interview with the Diamond Tongues team - Pavan Moondi, Brian Robertson and actress Leah Goldstein - for The Globe and Mail on the eve of its Toronto theatrical release..

"This could be the springboard for a Hollywood story about an indefatigable optimist who finally finds herself, an ultimately feel-good movie wrapped around its charismatic lead. But it isn’t. Diamond Tongues has been reviewed at hipster meccas like Slamdance as a kind of indie/millennial All About Eve – mostly because Edith isn’t very nice behind her smile, and she actively sabotages other people’s careers, including that of her best friend..."

An interview with Norm Wilner of the Toronto's NOW MAGAZINE.

"Rating: NNNN Pavan Moondi’s script is sharp and thoughtful, and he and co-director Brian Robertson create a terrific sense of place, bouncing around their downtown locations with just the right level of now-what exasperation..."

"Edith responds to this by embarking on a listless downward spiral, leaving terrible reviews for her frenemies online, masturbating to fantasies of being massively famous, and generally failing to get her demo reel or her shit together. Shot almost entirely in shaky close-ups that capture the claustrophobic quality of Toronto’s art scene (I live on the outskirts of said scene, I can vouch for the verisimilitude), it’s perversely fascinating to watch, and it’s a testament to filmmakers Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson’s script and Goldstein’s completely un-self-conscious performance that Edith never once tempts the viewer’s pity or schadenfreude..."

"Indie films usually depict aspiring actors in such noble terms that it's refreshing to encounter Diamond Tongues, about a struggling actress who's as unlikeable as she is compelling. Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson's feature which recently received its world premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival resembles a modern-day All About Eve in its portrait of its lead character Edith Welland (Leah Goldstein), who descends into a downward spiral of destructive behavior, directed at both herself and others, in her desperate attempt to make it in an unforgiving industry..."

"[This] Toronto-set drama intrigues by how unlikeable they are willing to make Edith. While indie cinema has no shortage of protagonists that are relentless assholes (see last year’s “Listen Up, Philip”), rarely are they women, and even more, it’s not often they are as complexly drawn as Edith....“Diamond Tongues” isn’t your standard movie about making it, instead, it’s about what happens when everyone else does and you’re left behind..."