This film about an exemplary woman, made by women, is as much a pleasure as it is a lesson.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Erik Molberg Hansen’s relaxed camera movements and fuzzy-soft compositions are quite beautiful, and the performances — including the superb Trine Dyrholm as the baby’s Danish foster mother — are pitch-perfect. Best of all is the magnetic August, whose open, mobile features can slide from plain to lovely with just a shift in the light and whose embrace of the character is a joy to watch.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
This familiar-sounding melodrama works because of the extraordinary performance, in the title role, by Alba August, a young actress whose every emotion is made manifest, like passing clouds or a burst of sunshine, on her uncannily expressive face.
Despite convincing performances, the film is hampered by its stylistic and moral conventionality.
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
The film’s occasional flatness of tone isn’t always well-used — these may be the raw materials for a classic Hollywood weepie, but sometimes you want to see filmmaking, not a camera pointed in the general direction of who’s talking.