The Swan
Synergetic Distribution | Release Date: August 10, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Village VoiceSerena DonadoniAug 9, 2018
Anchored by a remarkable child’s performance, The Swan is a sensitive example of an overlooked element in coming-of-age films: awakening to the outside world. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireAug 10, 2018
A coming-of-age drama that’s as beautiful and brutal as the remote, rural landscape of northern Iceland where it takes place. Read full review
75
The Film StageJared MobarakAug 9, 2018
While Sól’s trajectory is the plot’s main thrust, she’s really a conduit to a vérité depiction of life’s myriad complexities. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 19, 2018
The Swan hits many of the right notes but as an attempt to be something more, it paradoxically becomes less. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 6, 2018
Icelandic filmmaker Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir uses images, melancholy reveries and the voice-over narration of her nine year old protagonist to turn Guðbergur Bergsson’s novel into an austere, chilly and cryptic film. Read full review
60
Film ThreatNick Rocco ScaliaAug 23, 2018
It’s unfortunate that The Swan doesn’t fully catch fire as a family drama or a rites-of-passage story, but a film with such a rich and finely honed sense of place is one that nevertheless deserves to be seen. Read full review
60
Screen DailyBen CrollAug 9, 2018
The film delivers a dark coming-of-age tale through the young lead’s uncertain perception, tinged with uneasy implications and poetic flights of fancy. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenAug 10, 2018
The child's discovery of the beauty of nature, the workaday brutalities of farm life and the adult world's disappointments and betrayals rings true, to a point, and the young actor in the role is memorably guarded and watchful. In Hjörleifsdóttir's adaptation, though, the themes are too studied and neat, playing out in a way that can feel oppressive rather than revelatory. Read full review
45
Film Journal InternationalMaria GarciaAug 9, 2018
The simplicity and wonder of Sól’s quest for identity is muddled by pretense, and by circumstances and subplots that are tangential to her. Read full review
40
The New York TimesTeo BugbeeAug 9, 2018
Director Asa Helga Hjorleifsdottir never displays the passion that her characters suggest in their stories. If her film ever diverged from its ubiquitous images of misty mountains or its plodding piano score, perhaps its characters’ incessant mythmaking would convey deeper mysteries, inner worlds that are not visible to the eye. Read full review
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