80
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
The first scenes are hilarious, all sharp surprises and adeptly staged physical comedy. But then the story turns, the way that milk does, curdling into tragedy.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Under the Tree boasts the lurid determinism of many acclaimed European films that spit-shine genre-film tropes with chilly compositions and fashionable hopelessness.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
The film’s near-perfect calibration between family drama and black comedy recalls the director’s earlier features, Paris of the North and Either Way (remade in the U.S. as Prince Avalanche), but this is the one in which Sigurdsson really projects a distinctive voice.
80
It has the escalating, claustrophobic structure of the darkest farce, but humor doesn’t pile up in Under the Tree so much as it bleeds out.
88
The Seattle Times by J.R. Kinnard
Darkly comic and submerged in irony, events unfold with the inevitability of a slow-motion car wreck. When the emotional and physical carnage finally recedes, Sigurðsson leaves us with one haunting image that proves the universe has a sick sense of humor indeed.
83
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
You’ll find yourselves laughing and hating yourself for doing so because Sigurðsson doesn’t play scenes for comedy despite very obviously writing for it. This is a testament to his direction and the actors’ heightened states of borderline farce played with complete sincerity.
90
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Maintaining an unrelentingly gleeful grip on the film’s tone, Mr. Sigurdsson skillfully whips absurdist comedy and chilling tragedy into a froth of surging hostilities.
75
Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt
By trading in all its intrigue and emotional subtleties for the gotcha moment it’s clearly been waiting for, Tree wins the battle but loses the war.
75
It’s jarring and stereotype-smashing, for starters, and just plain disturbing on top of that.
80
Screen International by Sarah Ward
Unsettlingly perceptive as well as absurdly comedic, Under the Tree chronicles domestic tensions left to fester; when grudges branch out like a leafy tree in a suburban backyard, everyone suffers.