73
Metascore
19 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Screen DailyAllan HunterScreen DailyAllan HunterThere is a spare, focused storytelling here that creates room to breathe.
- 83The A.V. ClubRoxana HadadiThe A.V. ClubRoxana HadadiThis is an immersive portrait, buoyed by a central performance that’s hypnotizing in its sparse naturalism. What Basholli has made is a thoughtful, humanistic exploration of the fortitude needed to summon hope in a time and place resigned to hopelessness.
- 80The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisHive seizes and holds your interest simply through the drama created by sympathetic characters trying to surmount awful, unfair hurdles. Mostly, though, what holds you rapt is Gashi’s powerful, physically grounded performance, which lyrically articulates her taciturn character’s inner workings.
- 75Film ThreatHanna B.Film ThreatHanna B.Although, like its main character, Hive is more on the low-key and pensive side, it is nonetheless a gut-punching and measured film. It is about the consequences of warfare and the many wounds those who survive have to tend to in order to create a new normal after years of utter tragedy, such as the genocide and massacres that happened in many villages like Krusha during the Kosovo War.
- 75RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyRogerEbert.comTomris LafflyThough it doesn’t break new ground, Hive still reminds one how urgently significant it is to honor the unique fighting spirit of women, and how much cinematic joy seeing that spirit flourish against the odds can bring about.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungThe Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungIt’s hard to think of a less dramatic subject to fictionalize, yet in its own quiet way, Hive builds a strong storyline around the self-reliance and determination of an uneducated country woman, played with glammed-down but riveting cool by a granite-faced Yllka Gashi.
- 67The Film StageOrla SmithThe Film StageOrla SmithDespite Gashi’s strong, stoic performance, it feels like the film is more interested in inspiring its audience than it is in gleaning insight into Fahrije’s psychology.
- 63Slant MagazineWilliam RepassSlant MagazineWilliam RepassA layer of ambivalence facilitates our identification with Fahrije but also makes her a distinct character and not just an archetype.
- 60The New YorkerAnthony LaneThe New YorkerAnthony LaneIf you doubt that any movie could pay more exhaustive attention to its heroine than Spencer does, try Hive.
- 58IndieWireRyan LattanzioIndieWireRyan LattanzioWhile it certainly offers up a necessary-if-dour vision of patriarchy-dominated life in this particular corner of Europe, by-the-numbers storytelling and a flat, visual style occasionally lead to dramatic intertia. Still, Gashi is powerfully, effectively steely as a woman who must take matters into her own hands, even when they are tied by society.