Critic Reviews
83
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
26(96%)
mixed
1(4%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 27 Critic Reviews
All Reviews
All Reviews
Metascore
Metascore
100
Light entertainment, this is not. Unforgettable and challenging cinema, it is.
100
As with "Together," Moodysson has pulled off a staggering dramatic coup, and again we are forced to ask: How does he do it? [21 & 28 April 2003, p.194]
100
A haunting and incandescent work of art.
100
What makes the film so compelling is the ferocious ingenuity with which Moodysson ratchets up the fear and astonishment that accompany Lilya's all too believable descent.
91
It's almost too devastating for words, yet never less than compelling and heartbreakingly affecting.
90
Lilya's struggle to make a life for herself is both heartbreaking and heart-stirring.
90
It is Akinshina's presence and performance that make the pedestrian story heart-wrenching. She is pretty, responsive, reflective. Without the slightest strain, she convinces us of the beauty and pathos and hope within Lilya.
90
The most remarkable achievement of the film is its presentation of Lilya's story as both an archetypal case study and a personal drama whose spunky central character you come to care about so deeply that you want to cry out a warning at each step toward her ruination.
90
Hard-hitting, dark and tragic story that rarely lets up.
90
Lilya is the more genuinely unsettling film because Moodysson seems to actually know something of what it is to take and stumble beneath a crushing blow. You feel that here. And you feel it for days after.
