The Five Devils

If The Five Devils more bravely embraced a single perspective, that might have better bound together its depiction of a family splitting apart.

The film’s magical realism heightens its otherwise conventional contours and sharpens its otherworldly pleasures.

A surfeit of storytelling ambition is the only thing that threatens to upend this otherwise startling second feature from the French director Léa Mysius.

With a killer soundtrack, formal confidence, and strong performances, the film invites the audience to embrace the narrative’s chewiness.

[The film] loses its edge, building towards an overly sentimental, saccharine ending – but there’s more than enough witchy intrigue, interesting filmmaking and an array of strong performances to keep you compelled.

[Mysius] creates a sustained, mysterious mood and some striking visuals, which consistently make [The Five Devils] watchable.

Léa Mysius’s The Five Devils is a noteworthy sophomore film, not just in its accomplished delivery of craft but its effortlessness at capturing the story of a young girl time-traveling while a family and small community seem to splinter apart.

Strangely pendulating between present and past, the real world and the magic of a child's imagination, The Five Devils covers the layered relationship between a mother and a daughter. [Full review in Spanish]

The director relies on her cinematographer, Paul Guilhaume, to use a contrasting palette of colors for these five characters, the five devils of a story that's at times captivating, if not disconcerting. [Full review in Spanish]

... a thrilling dramatic tale of familial discord through the lens of parental relationships ...