Critic Reviews

It’s a profound, affecting and beautifully told chronicle of faith, family, obsession and the language of music.

The pieces are there for a profound piece of work, and The Song of Names’ high points are worth the occasional narrative slog.

Literate, sober, soulful, and considered as it is, the movie is also a little overly scrupulous in its tastefulness.

The Song of Names is a more interesting than fascinating mystery than it is a profound statement on memory, loss, tragedy and faith — which was plainly its aim. The conflict is more talked about than keenly felt, the climax something of an over-the-top anti-climax.

There is much to admire in the fluidity of Girard’s storytelling, in the music (Ray Chen did the violin solos) and in the complicated questions raised about social obligations. Still, the movie never quite justifies the contrivance of its puzzle-box construction.

A somewhat claggy, uneven work with stiff performances from the leads, both of whom seem to be sleep-talking lines as if they learned them in Yiddish first.

What he discovers is powerfully moving, but every step of his journey — and of the copious flashbacks that fill in various blanks — tests the viewer’s patience. It’s like eating an entire box of stale cereal to get to the prize.

Mainly, this movie chatters when it should sing.

In the end, the film is unable to bridge the gap between the emotions it elicits and the messages it imparts.

There’s a mystery at the heart of The Song of Names, but it isn’t much of a mystery, and once it’s solved, the movie loses what little interest it has. Though not exactly a Holocaust drama, the film is one in which the Holocaust figures tangentially, but crucially. Yet the movie’s overall effect is strangely inert.