Hide Your Smiling Faces 2014

Sara Stewart, New York Post: The many silences in "Hide Your Smiling Faces" don't speak quite loudly enough, and the film ultimately gets bogged down by its own ponderousness. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: [It] focuses on unspoken adolescent feelings instead of familiar puerile events, with cliches held at arm's length. Unfortunately, Hide Your Smiling Faces is so slow it could use a few action sequences to speed things up. Read more

Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal: Traces of classic coming-of-age dramas such as Stand by Me and River's Edge are evoked in this lyrical and low-key reflection on sudden mortality and childhood's end. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: There's a startling stillness about the film, especially the opening scenes, that becomes a character in itself and helps to avoid softness. Read more

Guy Lodge, Variety: Narratively oblique yet emotionally acute. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: [Features an] outsider perspective, authentic locations, unforced naturalism, and fresh, improvisatory work by first-time actors. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: A small gem from someone to watch. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Patrick Carbone's arresting debut confronts mortality as its young characters do, obliquely and with confused emotions embodied convincingly by child actors Ryan Jones and Nathan Varnson. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Testosterone rises like mist on an early-morning lake in Daniel Patrick Carbone's grimly determined, prettily picturesque first feature. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's not just these children's smiling faces that are hidden here - it's everything that might make you want to search out the meaning behind them. Read more

Tomas Hachard, NPR: Quickly and assuredly, writer-director Carbone puts us in the mood of these languorous summer days. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While there's little dialogue and no music, the naturalist filmmaking is anything but boring. The tension lends weight to the everyday business of being a young person with time on your hands. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: "Hide Your Smiling Faces" conveys life as the boys experience it: a pungent mixture of boredom, curiosity, fear and mischievousness, along with an anxious sense of being trapped. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: A self-serious, obviously heartfelt mood-piece which would have benefited from a bit more clarity and a lot less drifty, indie-by-numbers vagueness Read more

Jonathan Kiefer, Village Voice: Environment is very much a character here, and it's movingly apparent that Carbone, with sensitive cooperation from cinematographer Nick Bentgen, shot the film where he grew up. Read more