Ahed's Knee
Kino Lorber | Release Date: March 18, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyMar 31, 2022
Ultimately, the edge that Navid is pushing is less to do with a rant against the Israeli government than in creating a cinematic depiction of a tortured psychological state, in both the individual and collective meanings of that word. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 18, 2022
What makes Ahed’s Knee so powerful is the way the movie detonates before our eyes. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMar 31, 2022
Ahed’s Knee means to shatter your complacency, and also the complacency of its chosen medium. You could see this as a childish act of revolt, or you could see it as Ladiv, much like Y himself, refusing to submit to any agreed-upon parameters. He delights in coloring out of the lines, not least because he knows it will make all the right people mad. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMar 21, 2022
Ahed's Knee is a fascinating movie that evades most complaints of not having anything to say by showcasing its characters struggling to explain free-floating anxieties that have to do with a lot of things. It's also stylish as hell. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 11, 2021
If “Synonyms” was a howl, Ahed’s Knee is the spittle that was still left in Lapid’s mouth when it was over. It’s a smaller and less electrifying film — as contained and implosive as its title’s reference to Éric Rohmer would suggest — but also one that cuts to the heart of Lapid’s visceral genius and cauterizes the open wound at the center of his body of work. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorJul 11, 2021
A blistering work of meta filmmaking. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 17, 2022
There’s no doubt that this is, in several senses, a personal film. But that doesn’t mean that the character is simply the author’s mouthpiece; one of the things that gives this movie its raw, unbalanced energy is the indeterminacy of the distance between them. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangJul 11, 2021
Quite possibly brilliant, and very definitely all but unbearable, Ahed’s Knee is filmmaking as hostage-taking. If such language seems charged, this is Nadav Lapid: All language is charged. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallJul 11, 2021
The writer-director’s evident anger is tempered and fragmented by both fatalism, games of truth and lies, self-doubt and frequent reminders, in this Biblical landscape, of the historical and geological long view. Ahed’s Knee also works, perhaps surprisingly, as a drama that crackles with a never-consumed sexual energy. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerJul 11, 2021
Despite all the swagger, this is not style for style’s sake. It’s more about Lapid inventing his own language: one that’s highly personal, but also tries to expand horizons at a time when films tend to resemble TV shows more and more, especially in how they’re directed. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 10, 2022
Ahed’s Knee isn’t as sexy, satiric and light as its Felliniesque opening promises. But Lapid manages to make a lot of points about the creative person’s life in modern Israel, the sensitivities triggered and the moral quandary a thinking Israeli finds her or himself in. Read full review
75
TheWrapJason SolomonsJul 11, 2021
The performances are striking and do much to keep the film on a tightrope. Overall, though, it’s a work of robust intellectual energy and raging conflict that could come across as hectoring and even bullying. While fizzing with ideas and ideologies about cultural freedom, it’s also a very physical film, with close ups of skin — knees, toes, torsos — and the dry crunch of the stony desert. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCaroline TsaiJul 11, 2021
There is a kind of violence in resistance and a kind of violence in complicity, too, and to that end, the characters in Ahed’s Knee are trapped in a perpetual dance with their own identity and nationality, a never-ending negotiation of morality and belonging. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyMar 21, 2022
For all the specific accusations and denunciations that Y—and Lapid—level at Israeli politics and culture, “Ahed’s Knee” is, above all, a work of cinematopoeia: it looks and sounds and feels like what it means. Read full review
63
Washington PostPat PaduaMay 3, 2022
It’s all entertaining enough, in a shaggy way. But if the director can’t stay focused on his own subject, how are we expected to do so? Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 9, 2021
With Ahed’s Knee, Nadav Lapid plays a game with alter egos that’s at once canny and frustrating. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 11, 2021
As it begins to explain more and more about what drives its leading character, the film becomes less and less interesting and the stridently melodramatic finale, as well as being highly unlikely in ordinary plot terms, feels a little bit self-exculpatory. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubBrent SimonMar 18, 2022
If it sounds flamboyantly colorful to call Ahed’s Knee the cinematic equivalent of an echoing regurgitative scream, it’s also accurate. The film is a highly personal work that becomes trapped in its own feedback loop, making the same point over and over. Read full review
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