Metacritic reviews

A meditation on memory, identity, grief and loss, with the narrative device of a global pandemic thrown in for good measure: Apples might initially sound like a tough sell. But this hugely accomplished, satisfyingly textured first feature is really something special.

Simultaneously deadpan and dour, somber and surreal, this is a haunting meditation on the manipulation of memory to anesthetize pain, crafted with a meticulous attention to visual and aural composition that makes for arresting viewing.

What might have been the latest oddity of the Greek Weird Wave — or else a surreal collection of live-action “The Far Side” cartoons — instead feels soulfully relevant as reality aligns with the speculative world Nikou imagined.

Apples maintains the droll wit and entrancing abstraction of Lanthimos, but the film does not feel quite as drenched in irony. Nikou’s storytelling remains deliberately opaque while also leaving plenty of room for genuine emotional connection.

Despite its dower subject matter, Apples arrives bearing gifts of uplifting encouragement and pensive meditations on the nature of the human experience. Equipped with deadpan humor and numbing silence, Nikou’s philosophically minded dramedy strives to create conversation as much as it actively attempts to entertain.

What prevents Apples from becoming a simple Lanthimos copycat is its comparative kindness and its abiding direction of travel.

The filmmaker performs an astounding feat of maintaining the perfect balance between self-awareness, alienation, warmth, comedy, and pathos. Apples is a singular experience.

The droll Twilight Zone absurdism is not without its pleasures, many of them comic.

Having come upon a provocative allegory for the endemic dissociation of the hyper-digital age, though, Nikou does not interrogate it as intensely or from as many angles as possible in the lean, character-driven 90-minute film.

This is a movie full of lovely and lilting moments that invite you to reflect on the value of your own painful memories, and yet precious little of it is specific enough in a way that makes it hard to forget.