Critic Reviews

Went Up the Hill doesn’t just explore grief, it expresses it.

Samuel Van Grinsven’s Went Up the Hill is characterized by a starkly precise aesthetic and withholding approach to the ghost story.

Samuel Van Grinsven’s ambient and meandering ghost story is undoubtedly a haunting concept with committed performances and effective elements, but the film just can’t help but overstay its welcome.

A queer ghost story with devastating emotional power and transgressive themes of domination, selfishness and abandonment, it is all too often hamstrung by plodding stylistic choices and a thin script that stretches many of its interactions until they’re so thin, threadbare and ethereal that they end up just as spectral.

Despite a premise that begets one of the strangest lovemaking scenes in recent memory—a quasi-incestuous gender-bending head-spinner—the film is too frequently the epitome of pretentiousness.

Solid performances, a clever conceit, and technical over-competence behind the camera bolster what is ultimately a predictable and sometimes unpleasant viewing experience.

There’s something missing in this concoction: self-aware humor, a courage of its convictions, a driving force that propels the plot forward . . . Perhaps it was all just too steep a hill to climb.

Things eventually escalate, the pressure valve of pent-up emotions building and releasing. But it’s a long and demanding ride to get there, full of solemn looks and thousand-yard stares.