Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Daniel Ribeiro
Cast
Ghilherme Lobo,
Fábio Audi,
Tess Amorim,
Lúcia Romano,
Eucir de Souza,
Selma Egrei
Genre
Drama,
Romance
Blind teenager Leonardo is desperately trying to live a more independent life despite his overprotective mother. To the disappointment of his best friend, Giovana, he plans to go on an exchange program abroad. When new student Gabriel arrives, new feelings blossom in Leonardo that make him question both his plans and his relationship with Giovana.
Written with the heavy-handed metaphor of Leonardo's blindness, Ribeiro's coming-of-age love story is refreshing and light-hearted. Tackling the subjects of disabilities and coming out with grace, the young actors transport viewers into their world, a world where being who you are isn't as easy as many think.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
The tale, from Brazilian writer-director Daniel Ribeiro, is told with such tenderness, such intelligence and such aching honesty that it takes on the weight of something far more significant than puppy love. Like its subject, first kisses and best friends, it’s hard to forget.
Arizona Republic by Randy Cordova
This is a wonderful movie.
Empire
Touching and well-acted, Brazil's Best Foreign Film entry is a worthy Oscar candidate.
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Ribeiro’s screenplay, which is marbled with moments of humor as well as emotion, feels extremely well-tuned into the conflicted emotional lives of his adolescent characters, who often retreat into the safety of their childhood comfort zone after every exciting, but also scary, excursion into the adult unknown.
The New York Times by Andy Webster
This winning movie — directed by Daniel Ribeiro, making his feature debut — dexterously weaves the social challenges of adolescence into a story of broader self-discovery.
Empire by Liz Beardsworth
Touching and well-acted, Brazil's Best Foreign Film entry is a worthy Oscar candidate.
Total Film by Simon Kinnear
With the characters rarely verbalising their attraction, Ribeiro impresses by conveying Leonardo’s awakening through elegant long takes and the actors’ endearing chemistry.
TheWrap by Inkoo Kang
Admirable throughout is the balance that Ribeiro strikes between dewy eroticism and the contextualization of sexuality as just a single aspect of one's identity, albeit an essential one.
Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
What progressively mounts tension is the film's understanding of a boy's gradually realized homosexuality as being inextricable from the central metaphor of compromised vision.
RogerEbert.com by Glenn Kenny
The Way He Looks is a modest and good-hearted film that leaves a clean impression: you’re glad to have spent time with the people in it, for sure. But if you’re someone whose own specific circumstances are substantively different from those of the characters, the sense of a pleasant visit is pretty much it.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Tirdad Derakhshani
Those who give into its spell will find this a gentle, moving, and deeply intelligent portrait of the awkward, fumbling steps teens make into adulthood, and the promise of first love that draws them on.
The A.V. Club
Ribeiro captures the experiential awkwardness of young love pitch-perfectly.
Variety by Jay Weissberg
The pic has genuine appeal, though in truth the script and direction are little more than average.
Time Out London by Dave Calhoun
There are no great upsets or fireworks here, just a tender sketch of what it means to (probably) be gay as a school kid. The storytelling style is as inoffensive as the music (Arvo Pärt, Belle and Sebastian), and the performances are amiable and relaxed.
Village Voice by Violet Lucca
The shuffling of who's an important/close friend transcends the specificity of being gay and disabled, and that experience is rarely depicted as realistically as this. But the film crosses into self-parody.
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