70
A top performance for this year so far, Olszanksa's Olga is standoffish, frequently smoldering, rarely smiling, and she toes the line between intelligence and insanity.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
All of the film is handled in such a way: from the beautiful monochrome photography that only extends the disconnection Olga feels with the world, to the understated and haunting performances, particularly Olszanska's.
63
Slant Magazine by Christopher Gray
The filmmakers take few measures to engender sympathy for Olga, but their prismatic take on her life, while novel, precludes making any resonant statements about homosexuality, emotional health, or humankind’s capacity for evil.
80
Atmospheric and engrossing, this meticulous recreation of time and place acquires an unsettling contemporary relevance through its analysis of the mindset of a mass murderer with a death wish.
50
Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan
I, Olga Hepnarova struggles with its difficult central character, always spiky and occasionally psychotic but never really as intriguing as the filmmakers clearly believe.
70
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
Anchored by a startling performance by Michalina Olszanska, the Czech film “I, Olga Hepnarova” is an austere, hypnotic story of sadness, madness and murder.
63
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s film, on the other hand, narrates a true-life crime but fails to provide an element that might’ve lifted it above tasteful art-house ordinariness—an engaging point of view.
60
Unforgivingly rigorous to its final, exactingly composed monochrome frame, I, Olga Hepnarova shows us scarcely a flickering moment of light or joy in its anti-heroine’s short, loveless life, depicted on screen from adolescence upwards.
40
The Guardian by Leslie Felperin
Even if you go into this film knowing absolutely nothing about the true story on which it’s based...you’ll sense something dreadful is going to happen because so much of it is crushingly dull.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Olszanska gives an impressively intense performance, if a little too mannered at first, but neither she nor the filmmakers ever get beneath the character's skin.