63
Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo
The film thrives on ambiguity, keeping all things blurry outside its main character's focused perspective, its myopia sustained by Lumini?a Gheorghiu's tough, quietly intense performance.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
The last quarter of Child's Pose is so remarkably strong that it makes a sometimes grim journey worth sticking with to its destination.
80
A complex final scene — in which everyone finally lets the tears flow — only deepens the sense that well-meaning mother love can be as poisonous as it is nourishing.
60
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
It’s too bad that the filmmakers don’t allow an occasional breath of air into the sepulchral proceedings or ease up on the increasingly heavy-handed lessons.
80
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
With Child's Pose, the Romanian tide enters its Cassavetes phase, where the thin ice of haute bourgeoisie life cracks and opens wide.
67
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
Sporting a blonde dye job and a haughty, impervious manner, Gheorghiu makes Cornelia a consistently compelling figure, at once monstrous and pathetic.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose is a gripping new drama from Romania and another demonstration of how that country's new wave is developing a distinctive kind of real-time slice-of-life cinema with characterisation in extreme, pitiless closeup.
70
Through it all, Gheorghiu finds the perfect pitch between a mother’s love for her child and a kind of pathology.
60
The restlessness of the camerawork may drive you to distraction, but director/co-writer Calin Peter Netzer’s film is held steady by Gheorghiu’s staunch performance.
60
Time Out London by Trevor Johnston
Child’s Pose plays its thematic cards far too early, but it’s sustained by Gheorghiu’s compelling central turn as the endlessly self-deluding grande dame.