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United Kingdom · 2021
Rated R · 1h 44m
Director Ben Sharrock
Starring Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai, Ola Orebiyi, Kwabena Ansah
Genre Drama
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A complex and moving comedy about Omar, a young Syrian refugee awaiting asylum on a remote Scottish island. He is a virtuosic musician with the strings of his grandfather’s oud, which he has carried all the way from his homeland, but a mysterious hand injury now prevents him from playing.
While there’s little disputing Sharrock’s empathy for his dislocated, stranded characters . . . there’s something rather limited about his alteration of dry fish-out-of-water gags and scenes of people staring forlornly into the barren middle distance.
A comedy about the migrant crisis is more daring than a coming-of-age story, and Limbo, wanting it both ways, dilutes its best instincts with sops to formula.
Guided by El-Masry’s tender, understated performance and a tone that hovers between playful and sincere, Limbo manages to turn its downbeat scenario into a sweet and touching rumination on the quest to belong in an empty world.
Limbo sincerely and intelligently finds its own way.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
What begins as a modest and perhaps slight take on the refugee crisis tinged by an acquired yet welcome taste of British comedy, however, slowly reveals its underlying drama via the stark inevitability of its existence. You can only deflect from your plight so long before the stress and anxiety bubbles back to the surface.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
It’s tempting — and not entirely inaccurate — to call this oddly moving little film a comedy-drama, but if so, it’s a dark one at that.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
What a thoroughly wonderful sophomore feature from the British director Ben Sharrock – witty, poignant, marvellously composed and shot, moving and even weirdly gripping.
The A.V. Club by Roxana Hadadi
The narrowness of the frame forces us closer to what is caught within it, and the result is often bracing or achingly tender.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Limbo is an appealing little gem overall, with a feel-good message about the kindness of strangers that is glib and simplistic but hard to resist.
The poignancy and low-key desperation of the situation in which the men find themselves is balanced by the film’s warmth and gentle humour. In a market crowded with migrant stories, this is something special.
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