60
The animation is intricate and beautiful but the narrative is clunky and heavy-handed in places.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico
Yoshiura’s film resonates with the fantastic visions that we’ve come to hope for in the best Japanese animation. When the flat character design, two-dimensional villains, and unengaging narrative counter-act that, it falls flat. Like its two lead characters, it is of two worlds.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
At once a touching adolescent love story and a visually evocative portrait of society torn apart by literally competing forces, Patema Inverted is an uncommonly ambitious animated effort that beautfully illustrates the need for both physical and emotional connections in a topsy-turvy world.
80
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
The music is lovely, and the animation is soft and imaginatively detailed. Patema and Age may not know what’s upside down or right-way up, but their director is never in any doubt.
80
From the texture of the underground havens to the idea that our leads have to – literally – cling to each other lest gravity tears them apart, it’s a wonder of detail and ingenuity.
38
The film by Yasuhiro Yoshiura suffers from many of the same flaws as other anime features — a plodding pace, broad humor, a bland heroine and snarly, one-dimensional villains.
80
Village Voice by Sherilyn Connelly
Yoshiura keeps the story fairly linear, while playing with perspective and composing many stunning, vertiginous images that consider the different possibilities of being at war with gravity.
60
Time Out London by Trevor Johnston
It’s impressive but not dazzling.