Poppe’s way into the story – spending every second with one young woman as she navigates the carnage – is a moving testimony to the simple heroism that such events bring to the surface. Ultimately, it’s an homage to the very generation of young Norwegians who Breivik wanted to obliterate.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
For this critic, the events in the home stretch finally feel too much like concessions to the necessities of the laws of fictional drama, with first an unexpected twist followed by a melodramatic one.
The film has the power to make our bodies catch up with our hearts — the power to help us safely experience the kind of terror we need to remember in a way that makes it impossible for us to forget.
This grueling, pulsating, in-your-face film–almost to a fault–has ferocious power, but it’s going to divide like a fissure.
U – July 22 is designed to be as immersive as it is exhausting, and largely succeeds.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is an absorbing and moving tribute to the courage of the young victims of Utøya.