59
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The TelegraphDavid GrittenThe TelegraphDavid GrittenThe Banishment may lack the surprise factor of The Return but it's more mature and less wedded to virtuosic technique.
- 90TimeMary CorlissTimeMary CorlissIt is truly something to see; for among all the lives to be ruined it is a visual rhapsody, attentive to every nuance in the spectacular land and foliage around the family home, following the lives within as meticulously as it traces the dramatic changes in weather — from clear day to torrential showers — in one of the longest, most intricate and beautiful tracking shots in cinema.
- 60The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe first two-thirds are an extraordinary slow burn that provides ample time to admire Mr. Zvyagintsev’s talent with the wide frame. The movie is marred by an unsatisfying resolution, which has a coyness better suited to literature.
- 60EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonIt feels more like a ciné dissertation designed to showcase Zvyagintsev’s appreciation of the medium than an original piece of cinema.
- 60The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThere is an outstanding film somewhere inside this sprawling mass of ideas, which might have been shaped more exactingly in the edit.
- 50VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergThe undeniably talented helmer’s sophomore feature has little of the emotional power of “The Return,” though d.p. Mikhail Krichman does stellar work and thesping is faultless.
- 40Time OutDave CalhounTime OutDave CalhounThe elements are all in place – superb acting (lead actor Konstantin Lavronenko won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2007), masterly camerawork, an ethereal score, ghostly locations – but the problem is that the story never really connects.
- 30The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.