68
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonA rich and imaginative evocation of a family in turmoil.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterThe film is gorgeously shot and contains a plethora of haunting images.
- 80VarietyVarietyAt first, the picture seems a slow-moving, particularly well-framed ethnographic study of life in the big city in Peru; it only gradually becomes clear that Llosa's second feature perfectly aligns form and content.
- 80MovielineMichelle OrangeMovielineMichelle OrangeA sweeping theme writ small and somewhat gnarly, The Milk of Sorrow is, as Llosa has written, about "unresolved, violent, personal and collective memory" and a "metaphor for breakdown."
- 80Village VoiceElla TaylorVillage VoiceElla TaylorIn this wonderfully strange, hypnotically beautiful second feature from writer-director Claudia Llosa, the traumatic experience of the 1980s civil war on Peruvian women is passed down through song and, it is said, through their mothers' milk.
- 75The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe Milk Of Sorrow is lousy with allegory, and is often too heavy for its own good.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoMagaly Solier is compelling as the teen. She has little to say, as the camera remains fixated on her expressionless face.
- Solier delivers a performance of ferocious but frustrating reserve.
- 60Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfThe transformation that you anticipate never comes; the movie feels strangled.
- 50The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe Milk of Sorrow is constrained by a rarefied screenplay and a near-mute central performance.