The Way He Looks(Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho)

The A.V. Club by

Ribeiro captures the experiential awkwardness of young love pitch-perfectly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Variety by Jay Weissberg

The pic has genuine appeal, though in truth the script and direction are little more than average.

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.

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.