71
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeMemory invites debate, rather than imposing a specific interpretation. It’s also a film that lingers, shifting and expanding in significance, even as the details start to blur.
- 83IndieWireRyan LattanzioIndieWireRyan LattanzioChastain and Sarsgaard give a pair of haunting, expert performances as damaged people making sense of their own agony together. Franco gets out of the way of his actors without manipulating them.
- 83ColliderChase HutchinsonColliderChase HutchinsonIf a film like this were to have anything less than perfection from its leads, it would likely fall to pieces. Thankfully, the story comes to life in the hands of two veteran performers at their very best.
- 83The Film StageDavid KatzThe Film StageDavid KatzChastain and Sarsgaard––ably supported by Josh Charles, Jessica Harper, and Elsie Fisher across the ensemble––are just fantastic, and find an ideal emotional register for Franco’s dramatic somersaults.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyWhile hope is a quality not readily associated with the Mexican auteur’s work, it keeps surfacing here to extend a lifeline, even as we wait for the other shoe to drop. In that regard, Franco’s latest represents a slight departure, without surrendering the director’s signature austerity and intensity. He’s helped considerably by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, two riveting leads who hold nothing back.
- 70New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNew York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMexican director Michel Franco’s somber drama about the ghosts of the past has a lot on its mind, and not all of it makes sense. But its two leads are so good together, so weirdly right together, that everything slips away and you just watch them.
- 70Screen RantAlexander HarrisonScreen RantAlexander HarrisonA lot happens, story-wise, but if the film had just followed Sylvia and Saul learning how to be around each other, it would've been enough.
- 63Slant MagazineMark HansonSlant MagazineMark HansonThe film reveals itself as a prototypical yet surprisingly tender love story between two damaged people re-learning how to move through a world that’s unable to adequately support them.
- 60Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneySarsgaard is characteristically impressive, his gentle performance holding onto its mysteries and maintaining a dry delicacy that eschews Hollywood demonstrativeness.
- 50The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossThe PlaylistRafaela Sales RossThe two veteran actors share a lukewarm chemistry but settle into a competent balance between the diametrically opposed nature of their characters. Alas, as sharp as the duo might be, they cannot fight the moroseness that sets into the film’s latter half.