Beanpole
Kino Lorber | Release Date: January 29, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyFeb 27, 2020
Beanpole makes you feel its two-hour-plus running time, with drawn-out scenes full of off-centre framing and claustrophobic close-ups, but there’s an exhilaration in the audacity of the filmmaking, as the boldness of its portrayal of the survival drive. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 13, 2020
The film is an improbably thrilling work of art by virtue of its physical beauty and its relentless intensity of feeling about people — not only Iya and Masha — who would prefer in their heart of shattered hearts to feel nothing. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 29, 2020
Beanpole is moving, disturbing, overwhelming. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmJan 29, 2020
I imagine even Billy Wilder would’ve gotten misty-eyed during the final, perfectly-pitched moments of this extraordinary film. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 28, 2020
This is only the second feature from the sensationally talented Russian director Kantemir Balagov (who was born in 1991), and it’s a gut punch. It’s also a brilliantly told, deeply moving story about love — in all its manifestations, perversity and obstinacy. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 22, 2020
Each sequence of the film springs a fresh horror and a new intrigue. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 13, 2020
The brilliance of Beanpole is that it begins as the story of a collective horror, then becomes utterly, fascinatingly specific. Read full review
90
VarietyJessica KiangMay 18, 2019
Beanpole is incredibly bleak, but crafted with such care that it’s also deeply compelling. Events so disturbing that you long to look away are presented in images so striking that you cannot. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 28, 2020
The film is about bargains made and broken and re-negotiated. You watch it in an anxious, protective state, regarding the fate of these characters, and this fallout. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 26, 2020
The movie is floating into a fierce war of wills between Iya and Masha, one in which their locked stares gradually seem to become an eerie, eternal bond of sisterhood. They can’t look away. Neither may you. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 29, 2020
Beanpole is grim, but it’s too superbly crafted, and too alive with human spirit, to be a truly grueling experience. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJan 27, 2020
Even thought it’s a bleak and uncompromising film, it’d be unfair to call Beanpole “misery porn.” The questions it’s asking are much more complicated, and more cutting, than that. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJordan RuimyMay 29, 2019
In a film that is so disinterested to conforming to accustomed mainstream movie audiences taste and rhythms, and is committed to its sometimes difficult choices, the bold and exacting Beanpole sometimes feels damn-near radical. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 18, 2019
Beanpole is slow to thaw, and its emotional impact is dulled by a structure that delays the story’s full power until the final moments, but there’s a resonant beauty to how these women seize control over their themselves. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 5, 2020
It’s a demonstration of directorial chops that somehow never devolves into a look-mamushka-no-hands display, and a textbook example of how to use handheld camerawork (courtesy of cinematographer Kseniya Sereda) and splashes of red, green, and goldenrod effectively without being garish or grandiloquent. Read full review
80
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJan 9, 2020
I wholeheartedly recommend this film as a glimpse into the effects of war on female soldiers, and also as an opportunity to see WWII from a perspective that isn’t American. It has some devastating scenes, which makes sense considering the subject matter, but it also has a faint glimpse of hope that makes the film all the more worth watching. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 18, 2019
It’s a demanding sit, a film both rigorous and indulgent, rewarding and aggravating. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerApr 20, 2020
Neither Iya or Masha (in astounding first-time film performances by both women) know exactly what they want, and it is in their path to fumbling towards that understanding that they show compassion, cruelty, longing, forgiveness, and flashes of joy that fracture into melancholy. Read full review
75
Washington PostHau ChuFeb 19, 2020
A mostly empathetic tale of war’s cruelty as it affects both those who fight and those who merely look on. That empathy is conveyed through haunting performances, stunning direction and a sense of detail that elevates it beyond standard historical drama. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonFeb 19, 2020
Even if the film seems slow at times, there’s always something to look at, including Miroshnichenko and Perelygina, who are able to find grace and dignity in two such odd, hollowed out characters. Maybe, just maybe, these two veterans working in a hospital can heal each other. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 29, 2020
Balagov displays the cinematic skills of an auteur at least twice his age, and both lead actresses are captivating – an especially remarkable feat given that neither had acted on-screen before. Yet as Balagov peels back the layers of Iya and Masha’s stories, Beanpole feels less like a deep cut and more like a scratch. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 6, 2019
Kantemir Balagov depicts pain in blunt terms, but he traces the aftershocks of coping and collapse with delicate subtlety. Read full review
70
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 18, 2019
The film displays intense emotional seriousness and is finely performed and directed; but further shaping could have revealed the more focused work that’s begging to emerge. Read full review
67
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsMar 26, 2020
For all the ways the film appears to be taking a hard look at the lives therein, I walked away with the sense that I was too often given vague shapes where that hard reality ought to have been. Beanpole is effective, regardless, and at times genuinely moving, if frequently beguiling. It often works—even it believes a little too much in the power of its design and intentions to fully live up to them. Read full review
60
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJan 29, 2020
The characters don’t seem to exist outside the stilted drama of their individual scenes; the ambiguities of Balagov’s detached approach yield a sentimental tale of pride and reverence. Read full review
50
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenFeb 27, 2020
A goggling miserabilism defines Beanpole, making it hard to connect with the film on anything other than an aesthetic level. Read full review
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