Critics reviews

It’s a strangely moral tale – something more than a comment on the dehumanising effects of technology. It’s an examination of the ethics of manipulating the emotional intelligence of another creature for purposes of your own.

Like the films of fellow Austrian Michael Haneke, ["The Trouble With Being Born"] is frequently a hard watch. It demands a lot of its viewers and it makes no concession to mere entertainment. However, there is a purity of intent here which, if you can get past some of its flaws, is quite admirable.

Deeply unsettling and thematically rich, Sandra Wollner's film is, most of all, thought-provoking. If you can look past the controversy, 'The Trouble with Being Born' will haunt you.

There’s more at issue here than mere provocation, with Wollner’s complex, artfully crafted, sometimes wilfully perplexing film delving boldly into questions of memory, gender, identity and indeed film language... There’s an absolutely serious, distinctive artistic vision at work here, which should put second-time director Wollner firmly on the map.

Defined by the director as an ‘antithesis to Pinocchio’, Trouble With Being Born is a remarkable futuristic update to the myth of Frankenstein, taking place in a hypertechnological world, where programming crosses the line between life and death.

Wollner’s lacerating intelligence and riveting craft make this extraordinarily effed-up riff on the “Pinocchio” legend much more than empty provocation, for the few who can bear to think of behavior as a programming quirk, emotion as a string of code and morality as a malfunction.

Uninviting, cold, emotionless, but ultimately striking in its execution, ["The Trouble With Being Born"] heralds a new Austrian talent in the tradition of Michael Haneke or Ulrich Seidl, directors willing to pick at the scabs on the human soul.

Wollner’s ambient film — with its disquieting mood and myriad internal tensions — becomes defined by its meticulous observation of architectural space and dead time... "The Trouble with Being Born" is remarkable not just for its futuristic space and atmosphere, but also for how it depicts the relationship of the central house and the surrounding mystic forest.

In the end, The Trouble with Being Born suffers from the same issue as its moody androids: enervation borne out of repetition... Rather than truly exploring the ramifications of its futuristic conceit, whether from a broader societal or individualistic and relational perspective, the film just keeps looping back to the same luminously filmed but ultimately blank silences.

Sandra Wollner’s stylishly provocative film feels visually and tonally similar to Veronica Franzen’s "Good Night Mommie," but thematically she has struck out in a daring new direction mining the rich potential of groundbreaking science in a feature that explores memory, loss and loneliness in both past and contempo states of mind.

Except for its final moment of impact, the film has no clear narrative structure. It shifts instead between uncomfortable, uncanny scenes, forcing us to confront humanity’s self-serving desires, [while] the literal darkness of the picture, though sometimes distracting from the experience, further highlights Elli/Emil’s shapeshifting and provides a welcome shift from arthouse dirge to psychological thriller.