63
Saleem makes clever use of imagery, with the beautiful, snow-filled vistas representing his characters' personal and social isolation. But "Vodka" moves about as fast as the distant ice caps melt.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The thicket of relationships that the director, Hiner Saleem, has created and weaves his cast and camera through is so invitingly hotblooded and crowded with hilariously melodramatic incident that the snowbanks are not nearly as forbidding as they initially seem.
50
Exceedingly dry and precise and slow-paced comedy.
50
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Diverting but minor.
80
A little gem that takes a potentially grim subject and mines it for maximum humor and insight.
70
The situation in these former republics may indeed be dire, but it's a breeding ground for exciting cinema.
90
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Saleem, a Paris-based Kurd, displays the visual confidence and subtle screwball rhythms of a master, exploiting offscreen space, deadpan compositions, and deft visual backbeats, as well as attaining a breathtaking fidelity to real light and landscape.
50
The film's leisurely pacing is often too slow for its own good, and many scenes meander endlessly with no true payoff.
70
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
As the picture winds on, the feeling grows that Saleem, who clearly knows these people, wants to show that their mode of life in this stark setting has, in a gentle way, a touch of the ridiculous.
88
Iraqi-Kurdish director-writer Hiner Saleem is in no hurry to tell the story, and viewers drawn in by the warm-hearted tale and charmingly eccentric characters will be in no hurry for the closing credits.