Critic Reviews

Needless to say, Hüller is magnificent in a role that relies heavily on her abilities as a physical performer. Schleinzer is, naturally, not in the business of cheap sentiment, but when something vaguely resembling happiness presents itself in the story, the restraint with which Hüller allows Rose’s heart to thaw is still remarkable.

Schleinzer constructs a canny bait-and-switch: The film’s visual language, agrarian setting, and seeming emotional distance at the outset promise a harshly unfeeling European arthouse exercise. Until it isn’t. Until Hüller annihilates your heart.

Not an image is wasted. Not a single line of dialogue feels unnecessary, or a subplot tangential.

What’s perhaps unexpected, in a film that has the look of a brooding fable by Carl Theodore Dreyer, is how funny it is at times.

At once armored, guarded and intensely vulnerable, Hüller’s performance is the human factor here — a volatile, unpredictable element, but one nonetheless attuned to the film’s meticulous shaping and mise-en-scène.

The title role in the austerely beautiful character study Rose is such a thrilling fit for Sandra Hüller — her flinty manner, her fierce conviction, her steely charisma and her incredible economy of means — that it becomes impossible to imagine any other actor nailing the part.

Almost never offscreen, Hüller — and Braun, who has less screentime but is no less affecting — navigate unfamiliar situations with small, precise choices and reactions that cut through the deliberately alienating period setting, imparting an emotional energy that feels both current and relatable.

Markus Schleinzer’s Rose, an exceptional historical fiction, doesn’t so much transport you to the past as it brings you to the edge of the translucent curtain that often obfuscates history from view.

Hüller is quite exceptional as the disfigured human grimly determined to succeed, sacrificing pleasure and comfort for control.

Hüller’s quiet, sinewy performance provides the film’s form and musculature.