67
Mother Of George is rarely boring to look at, but it might still have been better served by a starker, less showy aesthetic.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
This is not a fable of assimilation or alienation, but rather the keenly observed story of two people seeking guidance in painful and complicated circumstances.
80
This is one of the most striking entries in the 2013 global wave of black cinema, but also admittedly one that poses hurdles to audiences with conventional expectations.
80
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
This world is ravishingly beautiful, but there’s also something oppressive about its exoticism. The color doesn’t just saturate the frame; it thickens it.
80
Working from a script by playwright Darci Picoult, Dosunmu fashions a tale that’s realistic, melodramatic and culturally specific (we spend as much time ogling colorfully patterned dresses as we do admiring Gurira’s endlessly expressive face), yet unmistakably archetypal.
90
Simply relating the narrative of Andrew Dosunmu’s seductive immigrant drama Mother of George would do little to convey the film’s stark, poetic power, much less its extraordinary visual and sonic acumen.
60
While some of the scenes feel contrived, the naturalistic performances never do.
88
Slant Magazine by R. Kurt Osenlund
Beautiful, poetic, and hard-hitting without the use of excessive force and deeply layered with evolving and regional nuances of feminine experience
90
Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek
As Adenike, Gurira is wonderful: Her face is equally radiant whether she's channeling anguish or joy, and she captures the ways in which this woman, so old-country dutiful, also longs to join the modern world.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
A pictorially unusual but dramatically listless tale.