Amanda

The film — in tandem with Lacoste’s lovely, unguarded performance — works as a magnified study in coping, charting the stages of his jumpstarted growing-up alongside the more meandering course of his grief.

For all that emotional content, Amanda is a pleasingly unsentimental film, never more so than in its understanding of children.

Hers delivers a hard lesson about the healing power of love and acceptance with simple and unsentimental eloquence.

Hers’s stamp as a contemplative miniaturist with an eye for the inner life is unmistakeably on display in this involving, typically graceful piece.

[A] good-natured and well-intentioned film.

The film shies away from any kind of political commentary, and as a result feels oddly sapped of fire or urgency.

In its favor, Amanda boasts subtle, sensitive lead performances from Lacoste and Multrier, who has a rare easy naturalism for such a young performer.