...despite a provocative climax, the movie settles into a ponderous collection of soliloquies...

| Jun 28, 2022

There's an art to ambiguity -- there really is... Left to their own devices, viewers will fill in the blanks, but when the movie starts filling them in itself, you have to wonder about the mismatch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 5, 2008

While Portman does outshine everyone and everything on screen and though she certainly gets credit for making the rsum sacrifice in the spirit of embracing her heritage, Free Zone does nothing for her in return

| Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 2, 2007

Without much effort you can imagine the corkboard littered with index cards mapping out the political clashes this cast is asked to act out in their robotic interactions.

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 3, 2007

Much of it is labored and overemphatic.

| Mar 1, 2007

A rambling road movie with noble intentions and an excess of speechifying.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 29, 2006

The elder actresses simmer as they warily interact, but the dialogue is more schematic than dramatic...

| Original Score: C | Sep 28, 2006

The milieu he chooses -- essentially one long, queerly prosaic car ride to nowhere -- robs the film of much of its dramatic force.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 27, 2006

Portman and the audience are stranded in the middle, on the outside looking in, with nothing to do and patience increasingly wearing thin.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 26, 2006

An exceptional new film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 20, 2006

A minor movie on a major subject, a drama with an almost unbearable lightness.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 7, 2006

The movie -- a metaphor for the tangled, impossible state of Israeli/Palestinian relations -- only intermittently clicks.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jun 30, 2006

...never seems to gain much emotional traction throughout its meandering female road trip, despite some provocative subject matter.

Full Review | Jun 14, 2006

Shot mostly in close-ups, it's a fascinating road movie with an absurdist allegorical finale.

Full Review | Jun 2, 2006

Without fail, Gitai's determination to churn everything into metaphoric mud prevails.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 2, 2006

Free Zone has a somewhat challenging narrative made more problematic by the difficulty involved in caring about the characters.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 2, 2006

Too slight as a metaphor for the larger catastrophe of the Mideast, too preachy to work as an emotionally compelling drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 2, 2006

Much of the dialogue is didactic and pedantic. And when not didactic and pedantic, it's plodding and dull.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 2, 2006

Maybe being stuck in the car is supposed to give you that claustrophobic feeling that you're in the middle of this, but it feels like a low-budget home movie from a vacation you wouldn't want to take.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 2, 2006

Despite dealing with a journey, this confused and confusing movie seems to go nowhere.

| Original Score: C- | Jun 1, 2006