79
Metascore
33 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Village VoiceScott FoundasVillage VoiceScott FoundasThe haunting final image suggests how quickly such stories can be lost...which makes Beyond the Hills, above all else, a powerful and necessary act of reclamation.
- 88Slant MagazineSlant MagazineIt's Cristian Mungiu's staging and compositional skill that lends the material its true sense of dawning dread.
- 83The PlaylistKevin JagernauthThe PlaylistKevin JagernauthDeceivingly complex, with an emotional center that peels away like an onion the longer it unfolds, this is a powerful effort from Mungiu in which love and faith are both different kinds of poison.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawEnthralling, mysterious and intimately upsetting – a terrible demonstration of how poverty creates a space which irrational fear must fill.
- 80Total FilmTom DawsonTotal FilmTom DawsonArduous yet always absorbing, Cristian Mungiu’s first full-length feature since 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is inspired by a real-life case of a tragically botched exorcism in rural Romania.
- 80Time OutKeith UhlichTime OutKeith UhlichAs in his much-lauded "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," the latest feature from Palme d’Or–winning filmmaker Cristian Mungiu takes a rigorous approach to the material. But where the previous film — about two women seeking a back-alley abortion — was a reductively dour slog, Beyond the Hills feels more caustically all-encompassing.
- Beyond the Hills is less fun than any film about lesbian nuns and their psychotic ex-lovers ought to be. But it is an engrossingly serious work, and confirms Mungiu as a maturing talent with more universal stories to tell than those defined by Romania’s recent political past.
- 60VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangObserving the situation at an icy remove, Beyond the Hills never builds the palpable menace and pressure-cooker anxiety of "4 Months," and its dramatic progression feels obvious, even predictable, by comparison.
- 25Film.comFilm.comAssisted by passionless central performances and dull dialogue, Mungiu succeeds only in exhausting our patience, not in conveying a message.