Critics reviews

My ambiguous feeling about the film is, perhaps, part of the point. You don’t _watch_ Asante’s film so much as participate in it: importing previous anticipation or reluctance, experiencing the film itself, and then thinking, talking, reading, or moving through its contents and context after the screening is finished.

"Slippery" is the word used in the festival's synopsis, but I would rather use the term "haphazard," as it seems more fitting to describe the film's careless political compass, and its jarring cuts between a tender teenage dream and a gruesome Gestapo nightmare.

The stridently theatricalized violence is horrific only because it’s so abjectly manipulative. By the end of the movie, my jaw felt unhinged from dropping so often.

Asante’s melodramatic plotting heaps chance upon chance until Lutz and Lenya are placed in a situation that is as improbable, perhaps, as it is untenable. It’s here that the film’s confidence falters, despite the fierceness of Stenberg’s performance in the final scenes.

Stenberg and MacKay do their best to sell the life-risking passion between Leyna and Lutz, but they’re overwhelmed by a narrative that gets less believable as the obstacles mount.