Critic Reviews

• Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail

  Fails to provide enough tension to draw us into what, at first, seems a properly chilling crime drama.

• Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

  If you have to pick between movies about the spiritual passion of tortured carpenters, make this the one.

• Kathy Cano Murillo, Arizona Republic

  A substantial story about how one man handles his personal turmoil.

• John Hartl, Seattle Times

  [Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's] most gripping film to date.

• Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

  A miraculously straightforward drama of deep symbolism and lingering power.

• Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

  It's spring-loaded with tension and driven by agonizing moral choice.

• Robert Davis, Paste Magazine

  It's a clear-eyed style of filmmaking reminiscent of The Decalogue or The Bicycle Thief, movies that adopt a raw, bare-bones aesthetic to capture the difficult morality of everyday life.

• Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

  There's no music, not much dialogue (and what there is is mundane), a deliberately bland video look, and not much happens.

• Jeffrey Overstreet, Looking Closer

  The Son will dazzle you if you patiently think it through and discuss it. The effort you put into it will determine how much it rewards you in the end.

• Steven D. Greydanus, Decent Films Guide

  Actions, not words or feelings, are at the center of The Son, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's challenging, nearly religious parable of humanity, fallenness, and grace.

• Mark Robison, Reno Gazette-Journal

  Simple yet deep. Not for blockbuster fans but amazing in its own way.

• Matt Bailey, Not Coming to a Theater Near You

  The Son proves that [the Dardennes] can take on the concepts of the human desire for revenge and the capacity for forgiveness without becoming precious or overbearing.

• Eric D. Snider, EricDSnider.com

  See if you don't find Olivier Gourmet's performance one of the most compelling and natural of the year.

• Liz Braun, Jam! Movies

  The events are simple. The emotions are hugely complex.

• Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City

  The Son takes forever to get going. And while that is a deliberate move by the filmmakers, Belgium's Dardenne brothers, it's still a problem.

• Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

  [The film's] sense of claustrophobia heightens the idea that guides The Son, that past events inextricably tie people, even strangers, together.

• Lance Goldenberg, Weekly Planet (Tampa, FL)

  ...a work of enormous moral and spiritual depth, where sacrifice, forgiveness and redemption are revealed as the natural extensions of the movie's humdrum landscape.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  The simple but persuasive social drama at some point grabs your attention and never lets go.

• David Elliott, San Diego Union-Tribune

  This carpentry is art.

• John A. Nesbit, Old School Reviews

  Although Olivier never faces a gang of outlaws, he becomes a modern Gary Cooper that stares down his inner demons

Read all 22 critic reviews