80
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
The gray skies under which Glavonic shoots, the unhurried takes in which he chronicles the drive, they put us with Vlada in an unmitigated way, the better to compel viewers to ask themselves what they would do in his position.
75
Slant Magazine by Jake Cole
Chromatically, The Load makes Saving Private Ryan look like The Band Wagon. Yet Glavonic still manages to convey the devastation and numbness that results from atrocity without resorting to exploitation. Trauma is approached obliquely, more a subliminal fact of life than a single psychological rupture to be confronted and mended.
80
Variety by Jessica Kiang
It requires a degree of commitment on the part of the viewer to join the sparsely placed dots of Glavonić’s harshly intelligent and uncompromisingly spare story, especially when the picture they form is so harrowing. But the elements that frustrate can also devastate.
75
The A.V. Club by Lawrence Garcia
As intelligently crafted as the film is, Glavonić’s directorial strategies do end up limiting the film’s observational power.
100
RogerEbert.com by Matt Fagerholm
This is one of the year’s best films.
72
TheWrap by Michael Nordine
It’s like we’re front-seat passengers, and though it induces much anxiety, “The Load” compels us to keep both eyes forward lest we miss whatever might happen next.
80
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
The overtly graphic isn’t Glavonic’s visual style, but rather a cold, more powerful image seepage — what a man’s physicality says about complicity, and what a shot of the muddied ground near a hosed-down truck says about what war does to the ground, a land and the soul.
70
Screen Daily by Sarah Ward
If any colour represents the long-term impact of war, it’s the blend of beige and grey that fills The Load’s quietly powerful frames.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
This well-intentioned meditation of the banality of evil packs a modest emotional punch, but it might have been more powerful if it had shown us a little less banality and a little more evil.