The Unknown Girl
Artificial Eye | Release Date: September 8, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 7, 2017
The Unknown Girl is as tense as a police procedural, and as mysterious as a religious parable. Read full review
84
Paste MagazineTim Grierson
The Unknown Girl isn’t just about guilt but also racism, the folly of pride and our collective need to be absolved for the bad things we’ve done—even if the penance doesn’t fit the infraction. All of this is done masterfully, but I confess it was masterful in just the way I expected. As a result, The Unknown Girl filled me with guilt as well—for not loving it more than I did. Read full review
80
Total FilmSimon KinnearDec 20, 2016
The Dardenne brothers deliver a perceptive portrait of professional integrity under pressure. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 28, 2017
The question that looms large here, lingering long after the closing credits, is whether, despite our human need for forgiveness, absolution is ever truly possible. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 14, 2017
Forcing their usual ethical query into the structure of a whodunit, the Dardennes have emerged with a narrative that, as compelling as it is, can also feel prosaic and even a bit predictable, especially in the overly aggressive melodrama of the closing scenes. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 8, 2017
Every Dardennes movie is worth seeing, and The Unknown Girl has all kinds of gripping undercurrents. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonSep 7, 2017
As we watch Haenel — whose piercing gaze is only one aspect of her luminosity — stride through these overdetermined scenes, clutching a medical bag to her side, we are reminded that even the most timeworn of conventions can be made electric and alive. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 4, 2017
You think afresh of the film’s title and wonder, Who is more unknown here, the nameless victim or the inscrutable doctor? Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 19, 2016
Some of the most acute pleasures here are in the doctor-patient exchanges, depicting with a rigorous absence of fuss or sentiment a relationship that's as much intimate as professional. Read full review
70
Screen DailyLee MarshallMay 19, 2016
If the intimate frame and dour, matter-of-fact aesthetic suggest a return to the raw territory of La Promesse or The Son, what is new here is a flirtation with genre that lends an extra dose of resonance to a finely-scripted story. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 19, 2016
Though what we get is largely exemplary: a simple but urgent objective threaded with needling observations of social imbalance, a camera that gazes with steady intent into story-bearing faces, and an especially riveting example of one in their gifted, toughly tranquil leading lady Adèle Haenel. What’s missing...is any great sense of narrative or emotional surprise. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 6, 2017
The Unknown Girl isn’t just their first bona fide thriller. It’s also the first Dardenne film in more than 20 years that could reasonably be described as less than exceptional, even a little clumsy. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnMay 19, 2016
The Unknown Girl combines its naturalistic direction with a strong lead performance and topicality, although these ingredients are hobbled by their familiarity. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 19, 2016
The somewhat drab aesthetic and almost vanishingly understated performance style dull the potential pleasures of a good old-fashioned whodunnit to roughly the luminosity of an above-average feature-length episode of a TV procedural. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiSep 8, 2017
Aan odd fusion of an earnest socially conscious drama and a B-movie mystery programmer that never quite comes together despite a strong performance from Adele Haenel at its center. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 20, 2016
Some clunky coincidences and unlikely events confuse the film's mission, and it lacks the clarity and parable-like meaning of the brothers' best films. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 19, 2016
It’s only in the final stages of assembly that you start to realise some bits are missing. Read full review
58
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaMay 19, 2016
Even the cinematography by the Dardennes’ long-time collaborator Alain Marcoen, usually so instrumental in ensnaring the viewer within their films’ ethical quandaries, is surprisingly flat this time around. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 19, 2016
A run-of-the-mill, plodding drama, the 'social realism' of which never feels particularly real. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 19, 2016
The Unknown Woman is an odd, dramatically stilted and passionless quasi-procedural concerning a mysterious death; it depends on a series of unconvincing, and in fact borderline-preposterous, encounters and features a bafflingly inert performance from Adèle Haenel, whose usual spark appears to have been doused by self-consciousness. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 20, 2016
This is a left-footed and clumsily insistent work, exposing the worst aspects inherent to the Dardennes' style. Read full review
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