In a Better World
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: April 1, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 31, 2011
One of the places where In a Better World is especially successful is comparing and contrasting the moral worlds of children and adults, showing how difficult but essential it is for each group to learn from the other. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 12, 2011
Anton has a sad, gentle detachment that allows him to turn the other cheek literally through a series of slaps. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreMay 4, 2011
A most deserving Oscar winner and a film that could provoke discussion anywhere it is shown, anywhere people of any age are being bullied. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyApr 29, 2011
The acting is superb across the board, and the film moves dreamily yet with razor-sharp precision, building to a sequence of deeply felt climaxes. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumMar 30, 2011
A fine example of Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's (Brothers) talent for weaving together accessible domestic melodrama and issues of ethical awareness of the world beyond our doorstep. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 1, 2011
World is grounded, offering up a rare case of well-earned hopefulness. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineSteve RamosMar 28, 2011
An artistically mature work with pitch perfect performances. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 28, 2011
However didactic the film's final scenes, there's no denying the sheer dramatic intensity Bier achieves. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 28, 2011
There are no answers in her film, no intractable rights and wrongs. No characters are indicted for their mistakes or misjudgments, yet no one gets off scot-free either. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 6, 2011
Although it starts slowly, the accumulated tension and thematic resonance leaves us breathless. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenApr 15, 2011
Give director Susanne Bier full marks: Her encasing parable is brand new and immediately provocative. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 7, 2011
This meditation on violence explores the toxic knock-on effect of powerlessness and overcompensation, delivering a potent essay on the roots of society's most primal evils. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliApr 7, 2011
The film about violence and retribution is a tough piece of work, subtle in some ways, obvious in others, viscerally affecting throughout. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithApr 1, 2011
Director Susanne Bier's chilly morality play is slow to get started, but once established, its three parallel stories comment provocatively on one another. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 31, 2011
An emotional powerhouse. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 14, 2011
It's oddly emotionally detached, easier to admire than to become involved in. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 3, 2011
Above all, what makes the movie work -- what renders it not merely exhausting but fulfilling -- are the boys. Bier summons fine performances all around, but Nielsen, in particular, turns the role of christian into a drama all its own. [4 April, 2011, p. 82]
67
IndieWireEric KohnMar 29, 2011
Bier has done far more compelling work before, but the globe-spanning, life-affirming, morally upright trajectory of her latest accomplishment weakens its quality while sustaining its popularity. In a Better World is heavy, but it's also heavy-handed. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekApr 3, 2011
Bier appears to have a delicate touch with actors: In a Better World is loaded - perhaps overloaded - with nuance, and her performers never overdo a thing. Read full review
65
NPRBob MondelloApr 1, 2011
After a few queasy moments at its midpoint, the trajectory of In a Better World becomes so relentlessly platitudinous that an audience that ought to feel seriously rattled will be settling back, feeling comfortably reassured. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertApr 16, 2011
There are two strong stories here, in Africa and Denmark. Either could have made a film. Intercut in this way, they seem too much like self-conscious parables. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesApr 14, 2011
I hate to rap this serious-minded filmmaker, but I'm beginning to wonder whether her scripts aren't better realized when they're held in check. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasApr 7, 2011
Bier allows her film to be buried by its own overwrought ambition. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 31, 2011
Everything about In a Better World feels just a little too easy: a better movie might have let in more of the messiness of the world as it is. This one falls into cheap manipulation, winding up the audience with foreboding music and the spectacle of blond children in peril. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla TaylorMar 29, 2011
Slick moralizing grows exponentially as the plot, wrapped in travelogue photography, transparently expository dialogue, and cheap thrills, drives home spurious parallels between the first and third worlds. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 28, 2011
Bier dramatizes our ambivalence so earnestly that it's tempting to give her awards rather than admit that the movie is a crushing bore. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 3, 2011
It is not the redemptive uplift that I am objecting to here. It's the way that Bier manipulates us in order to send us aloft. She wants the world to be a better place. Fine. But what she has concocted here is an arty version of the same old Hollywood dumb-down dramaturgy. It just has a higher gloss. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid FearMar 29, 2011
While Bier doesn't offer easy partisan answers, she still dilutes a social issue down to the level of soap-operatic background noise and back-patting platitudes. It-and we-deserve better. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisApr 14, 2011
The movie is swept up in earnest self-importance. Read full review
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