75
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmRogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmThis is one of the year’s best films.
- 80VarietyJessica KiangVarietyJessica KiangIt requires a degree of commitment on the part of the viewer to join the sparsely placed dots of Glavonić’s harshly intelligent and uncompromisingly spare story, especially when the picture they form is so harrowing. But the elements that frustrate can also devastate.
- 80The New York TimesGlenn KennyThe New York TimesGlenn KennyThe gray skies under which Glavonic shoots, the unhurried takes in which he chronicles the drive, they put us with Vlada in an unmitigated way, the better to compel viewers to ask themselves what they would do in his position.
- 80Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleLos Angeles TimesRobert AbeleThe overtly graphic isn’t Glavonic’s visual style, but rather a cold, more powerful image seepage — what a man’s physicality says about complicity, and what a shot of the muddied ground near a hosed-down truck says about what war does to the ground, a land and the soul.
- 75The A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaThe A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaAs intelligently crafted as the film is, Glavonić’s directorial strategies do end up limiting the film’s observational power.
- 75Slant MagazineJake ColeSlant MagazineJake ColeChromatically, The Load makes Saving Private Ryan look like The Band Wagon. Yet Glavonic still manages to convey the devastation and numbness that results from atrocity without resorting to exploitation. Trauma is approached obliquely, more a subliminal fact of life than a single psychological rupture to be confronted and mended.
- 72TheWrapMichael NordineTheWrapMichael NordineIt’s like we’re front-seat passengers, and though it induces much anxiety, “The Load” compels us to keep both eyes forward lest we miss whatever might happen next.
- 70Screen DailySarah WardScreen DailySarah WardIf any colour represents the long-term impact of war, it’s the blend of beige and grey that fills The Load’s quietly powerful frames.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonThe Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonThis well-intentioned meditation of the banality of evil packs a modest emotional punch, but it might have been more powerful if it had shown us a little less banality and a little more evil.