Evolution
IFC Midnight | Release Date: November 25, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 8, 2016
The characteristics that make Evolution an intriguing piece of cinema also make it a not entirely successful one. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenDec 7, 2016
The horror imagined by Évolution does not depend on the genre’s familiar tropes but instead its arousal of dread and fear, not unlike Guillermo del Toro in "The Devil’s Backbone," in which the peril is intuited rather than defined. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoNov 30, 2016
Evolution is undeniably beautiful, but it's a small-scale story which ignores a larger world that needs far more exploration. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsNov 25, 2016
The makers of Evolution may dazzle viewers with an intoxicating visual style, but they never lose sight of Nicolas' humanity. Do not miss this film. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleNov 25, 2016
A striking and maddening delivery system for art house creepinesss. Read full review
100
The New York TimesGlenn KennyNov 25, 2016
It’s an impeccable, creepy and genuinely transporting movie. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnNov 25, 2016
This is the story of evolving consciousness that leads to the birth of skepticism — and, more specifically, a mistrusting of authorities that yields the desire to seek out a better world. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 23, 2016
Evolution is the sort of film that doesn’t require you to “turn off” your mind, but does ask that you surrender certain expectations. Most of all, this is a vision that no other director would have imbued with such a potent amalgam of tender and twisted. It’s a pleasure to have her back. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid EhrlichNov 23, 2016
By the end of this most ominous lullaby, it’s clear that the film isn’t a puzzle meant to be solved—it’s an oblique return to childhood, to a time when there was no clear boundary between imagination and reality, when everything you didn’t understand was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonNov 22, 2016
Evolution more often chimes aesthetically with a European arthouse drama, but that is only until it voyages into more fantastical territory. Then this haunting and esoteric work manages to seduce and repulse in uncanny harmony. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonNov 22, 2016
Clinical in the extreme, Evolution aims for open-endedness, but the film, unlike its pint-size protagonists, remains impenetrable. Read full review
50
The Film StageEthan VestbyMay 17, 2016
A silly horror movie at heart, Lucile Hadžihalilovic‘s Innocence follow-up seems to confuse “ideas” with “prolonged silences.” Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyMay 4, 2016
As we’re steered from nightmares to raptures, the mix of horror, sci-fi, puberty fable and gender-twisting perhaps strains the narrative. But two certainties hold: it’ll stick with you, and Hadžihalilovic is in total command of her evolution. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMar 13, 2016
The film interprets itself, offering an essay on rape and gender fluidity that locks us out of the cognitive process of digesting it. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 18, 2015
With its linear narrative and clear sense of a protagonist, Evolution is both more beautiful (thanks to gorgeous widescreen cinematography, including stunning underwater and nighttime footage, from “The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears” d.p. Manu Dacosse) and accessible than “Innocence,” though the two films clearly function best as the twisted diptych that they are. Read full review
80
The GuardianJordan HoffmanSep 18, 2015
It’s a quiet, deliberately paced film, but exquisitely shot, with nuanced performances and visual invention. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerSep 18, 2015
With her sophomore effort, Evolution, the writer-director delivers another disturbing mélange of experimental genre filmmaking and adorable, tortured French kids, offering up a trippy visual feast that satisfies on an aesthetic level, if not always on a narrative one. Read full review
91
The PlaylistNikola GrozdanovicSep 18, 2015
Cloaked in a mystifying atmosphere and possessed by a transfixing, amorphous mood, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Evolution is a beautifully strange hybrid of innocence and disturbance. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLisa NesselsonSep 18, 2015
The only thing that’s clear from start to finish is that Hadžihalilovic is in absolute command of her unsettling cinematic realm. Read full review
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