Under the Tree
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: July 6, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Original-CinJim SlotekJul 19, 2018
Though Under the Tree falls firmly into satire, it is not a comedy with a lot of laughs. It is more an absurdist tragedy, with cringe-worthy moments. Read full review
90
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 5, 2018
Maintaining an unrelentingly gleeful grip on the film’s tone, Mr. Sigurdsson skillfully whips absurdist comedy and chilling tragedy into a froth of surging hostilities. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerJul 19, 2018
This film moves from black satire to a horror-thriller so smoothly you don’t even realize it’s happening – like the proverbial slow-boiling frog. Grim stuff, gloriously so. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesJ.R. KinnardJun 1, 2018
Darkly comic and submerged in irony, events unfold with the inevitability of a slow-motion car wreck. When the emotional and physical carnage finally recedes, Sigurðsson leaves us with one haunting image that proves the universe has a sick sense of humor indeed. Read full review
83
The PlaylistKyle KohnerJul 19, 2018
With suburban normalcy ultimately derailed by a suitably cynical, albeit humorous resolution, the final actions these neighbors take contribute to a far more meaningful message regarding the unsympathetic tendencies of humanity. Moreover, the measures taken by these feuding characters underlie the ruinous ways in which grief, hysteria and mental illness as a whole continue to be approached by society, especially by our own family members and neighbors. Read full review
83
The Film StageJared MobarakJul 5, 2018
You’ll find yourselves laughing and hating yourself for doing so because Sigurðsson doesn’t play scenes for comedy despite very obviously writing for it. This is a testament to his direction and the actors’ heightened states of borderline farce played with complete sincerity. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJul 5, 2018
The first scenes are hilarious, all sharp surprises and adeptly staged physical comedy. But then the story turns, the way that milk does, curdling into tragedy. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungJun 1, 2018
The film’s near-perfect calibration between family drama and black comedy recalls the director’s earlier features, Paris of the North and Either Way (remade in the U.S. as Prince Avalanche), but this is the one in which Sigurdsson really projects a distinctive voice. Read full review
80
Screen DailySarah WardJun 1, 2018
Unsettlingly perceptive as well as absurdly comedic, Under the Tree chronicles domestic tensions left to fester; when grudges branch out like a leafy tree in a suburban backyard, everyone suffers. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeJun 1, 2018
It has the escalating, claustrophobic structure of the darkest farce, but humor doesn’t pile up in Under the Tree so much as it bleeds out. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoJul 12, 2018
It may surprise you to hear that in the end there is a sliver of hope offered in Under the Tree, so thin that it’s almost not there. A less interesting movie might simply have served up a headlong plunge into the abyss — but Sigurdsson gives us a tiny flicker of light. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 10, 2018
This crafty sociological thriller, set amid the pristine townhouses and lawns of a quiet Reykjavik suburb, builds slowly but surely into a film that feels utterly of a piece with a much wider world. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJul 6, 2018
What makes it a better-than-average satire on the unthinking hostilities that human beings are prone to is its steady intelligence, combined with a humor sometimes so dry as to be undetectable. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 5, 2018
By trading in all its intrigue and emotional subtleties for the gotcha moment it’s clearly been waiting for, Tree wins the battle but loses the war. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 22, 2018
It’s jarring and stereotype-smashing, for starters, and just plain disturbing on top of that. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 5, 2018
Don’t write it off. You know about good things and small packages; this is a dark and startling thing in a brightly wrapped package, and the brightness is all the more misleading because the action takes place during Iceland’s radiant summer. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 5, 2018
Screenwriters Sigurdsson and Breidfjord are fiendishly good at imagining the complimentary ways things spiral out of control, and the actors are expert at making us believe in what the director accurately calls “a war film where home is the battlefield.” On another level, however, with situations so grotesque it is often an effort to laugh. Read full review
60
CineVueChristopher MachellJan 27, 2019
Largely uninterested in the humanity of its characters, too often Sigurðsson is content to skewer his subjects without trying to understand them. Read full review
60
The GuardianCath ClarkeAug 14, 2018
Sigurðsson is no misanthrope and his humane message – that everyone is muddling along as best they can – makes all the feuding and bile easier to stomach. Some may prefer a little more bite. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJul 2, 2018
Under the Tree boasts the lurid determinism of many acclaimed European films that spit-shine genre-film tropes with chilly compositions and fashionable hopelessness. Read full review
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