The Hollywood Reporter

Beautifully shot and tenderly acted, placing all its faith in pure emotion rather than in overly convoluted twists and turns, this is the sort of gem that feels all the more special for appearing, at first, so ordinary.

Aesthetic flourishes abound, which make it an entertaining viewing experience, but one does wish that the narrative was a touch more complex. Lelio embeds some compelling meta-textual moments — ones that mostly address that fact that he’s a man tackling this subject — but the actual story of Julia can feel secondary to the melodic pageantry.

The movie’s captivating sweetness is hard to resist, showering its love on a pint-sized human character so out of step with her kid contemporaries she has difficulty making friends. Turning around the lonely life of 8-year-old Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears) becomes an urgent mission for the toys.

It’s all very atmospheric, including the frequent bloodlettings that Sister Brigid applies to Robin’s arm (the camera lingers lovingly on every spilled drop). But the dour, humorless proceedings never achieve the profundity they’re aiming for, and the revisionist take on Robin doesn’t prove very interesting or revelatory.

There are allegories that can be read about fear of the unknown breeding cruelty and exploitation, but Disclosure Day is first and foremost a propulsive yarn with thematic roots in hope, truth, empathy and perhaps even spirituality.

Using a well-edited combination of vintage and recent interviews and copious amounts of archival footage, the documentary recounts the band’s story in compelling fashion, with Questlove providing enough imaginative stylistic flourishes to prevent it from feeling like an extended Behind the Music episode.

This is a Valeska Grisebach movie, so even if the stakes initially seem high, the director does everything she can not to deliver a predictable action-packed suspenser, but rather an intermittently fascinating and frustrating portrait of a place that’s been left to the dogs.

The film tells a story that will probably be familiar to anyone who grew up in Japan. It then takes that classic narrative and adds a few new twists, as well as a decidedly anti-war message that seems to be speaking to our time as well.

An overly mannered affect undermines the rawness of the emotions, keeping them from landing with the impact they ought.

While not every grown-up romance needs to be sexually explicit, this stiff restraint sits at odds with a script that often seems to be reaching for Apatovian raunch.