Critic Reviews

What has been crafted with The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open is the multitudinous reality of past and present, absent and material; a world-affirming space of narrative realization that speaks to those who exist within the efforts and “now” of survival.

Don’t let its florid, mouthful of a title mislead you: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is a film that’s as urgent and unpretentious as it is remarkable. It’s safe to say you haven’t seen too many movies quite like it.

Filmed almost entirely in real time, and using a series of long, intimate takes, “The Body Remembers” is about privilege and its lack, motherhood and its absence, race and its legacy.

The film is gentle, subtle, patient and wholly authentic. What makes it essential is not only in its ability to create a drama that’s real, harrowing, haunting, and hopeful but in its ability to keep playing in our heart long after it’s over.

There's a wrenching sadness to this simply told story, but also but also a heartrending hope.

Stands out in a field of generic, cookie-cutter dramas, not simply in terms of representation — though the female-made, indigenous-focused thriller offers a field day for intersectionality theorists — but also in the unconventional way the story unfolds.

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is a genuine social realist film and the fact that it is shot in real-time only heightens the sense of reality. Everything is authentic.

The lack of dramatic fireworks mute the film’s impact somewhat. And young Ms. Nelson has an unfortunate tendency to mumble, swallow her lines.