Leviathan 2014

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: The masterful script deals with telling words. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: Director Andrey Zvyagintsev's film combines allegory, brutal melodrama, black humor and strikingly beautiful compositions, each frame dense with meaning. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: At times the movie suggests a Cheech and Chong comedy with cannabis replaced by vodka. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Nothing will surprise Zvyagintsev fans more than discovering how funny the film is, as the helmer and co-writer Oleg Negin extend the darkly satirical streak they began with Elena. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Leviathan is another downer, but it's considerably looser and livelier than its predecessors, verging at times on black comedy. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Enormously captivating, a study of oppression, human nature and the effect of the two things upon each other. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Leviathan" plays like downer Tolstoy, masterfully specific to these people and unforgivingly allegorical toward the country at large. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: As in their previous feature, Elena, Zvyagintsev and cowriter Oleg Negin modulate their social critique with sharp, ironic humor. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's a small story set in a memorably desolate location. The actors, all quite magnificent, enlarge it ... Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: For all his failings, Kolya, in the movie's terms, is a natural man, and so his fate in fighting his implacable enemies in the state has a mythic resonance. The movie would not be as powerful as it is if he were haloed. Read more

Andrew Welch, Dallas Morning News: An observant and skillfully crafted film about corruption in modern-day Russia. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Yes, this could happen anywhere, but you get the feeling it happens often in Russia. The only real hope here is that a movie this hard on the motherland could be made there. Read more

Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly: What emerges is a Putin-offending critique of how the power-abusing state and the power-worshipping church collude to create millions of Jobs. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter: Andrei Zvyagintsev's fourth feature is a thriller, a black social comedy, and a thinly veiled swipe at Putin's regime in one tidy package. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Bleak and relentless as well as impeccably made, biblical in its name as well as its moral outrage at the powerlessness of the individual in the face of unchecked authority, "Leviathan" is dealing with nothing less than the current state of Russia's soul. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: This is a portrait of people living under constant duress, trying to drown their sorrows in a bottle and sometimes behaving in misguided ways that will free them, if only temporarily, from their grim reality. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Heavy stuff but highly rewarding, and an illuminating look into a country still steeped in its brutal past. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Many conversations start and end around a kitchen table. Why, then, should we be left with such an impression of grandeur, limitless suffering, and wrath? Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: This is really a movie about a feeling, or really, about a lack of feeling - about what happens to people in a dominant culture of bullying and abuse, when they have no escape except what's inside the next bottle, no options except not waking up. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: 'Leviathan' is structured as an intimate suspense story, with a Job-like hero on whom all sorts of hell will be visited by an uncaring state. Read more

Graham Fuller, New York Daily News: A bleak, beautiful, and bitterly funny parable of post-Soviet Russia. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Despite flashes of absurdist comedy from some secondary characters, the movie closes around you like the fist it protests and laments. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A story of political and spiritual corruption, of men and women accustomed to power, and of others fighting against it. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Director Andrey Zvyagintsev puts contemporary Russia, as up-to-the-minute as Putin and Pussy Riot, under the microscope. Leviathan is a stupendous piece of work that transcends language and borders. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: This is quite a movie, a bitter and compassionate work of genius that will reward repeat viewings and keep on getting better. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: As harshly beautiful as the Barents Sea coastline where it is set, this parable inspired in part by the biblical tale of Job dumps more misfortune than one hapless man should ever have to endure. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Call it what you like - a modern Russian epic, a crime drama, a black comedy or a scream in the dark - Leviathan is a shaggy masterpiece. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Andrey Zvyagintsev's Oscar-nominated and vodka-soaked satire of modern Russia, which plays more like tragedy. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: This is a whale of a movie, grotesque and a little bloated but impossible to ignore. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The heart and soul of Leviathan is Serebriakov's Kolia, who carries deep sorrow in his eyes and on his shoulders, even as he fends off defeat for longer than you'd imagine possible. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Filled with a desolate beauty. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: From its chamber-piece delicacy and bureaucratic detail to a grandeur and implacable pessimism that seem as ancient as the land itself, "Leviathan" is a distinctly Russian tragedy. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The movie expands, breathtakingly, into mordant humor, impenetrable mystery, ferocious satire and classic tragedy. Read more