Just when you're ready for "Aloft" to take wing, it ends.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 10, 2015

Connelly, with her signature brand of serene toughness, does tragedy very well, but she doesn't really have a character to play here; just an endless series of tight close-ups and troubled expressions.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 2, 2015

Aloft's characters exude a certain impregnability, and the story's structure only further distances us from them.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 25, 2015

Llosa's film pushes its enigmatic and quietly brooding qualities to the point that it's inaccessible, despite some mildly intriguing spiritual story elements and skilled performances ...

| Jun 11, 2015

The majority of the film strives for ethereal lyricism but the melodrama of these lives never proves strong enough to anchor any real emotional connection.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 11, 2015

Some movies practically dare you to give up. "Aloft" is a beautifully shot, frustratingly vague and deeply ponderous mystery/spiritual journey about terminally unhappy souls.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5 | Jun 5, 2015

The truth is elusive, and so is Aloft. Maybe viewers will figure it out cleaner than this reviewer did. And maybe the best answers aren't served on platters.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 4, 2015

A film for true believers: people who can accept - or at least wrestle with - the idea that God (or whatever) can ask you to do things that you and yours cannot understand, or give you a gift that's good only for other people.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 4, 2015

It's a meditative and intriguing tale filled with mystical imagery that never reveals all of its secrets. That's a good thing.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 4, 2015

The story doesn't add up to much, but the stark natural imagery and frank discussions of spiritual longing leave strong impressions.

| Jun 4, 2015

Aloft has a few serene and gut-wrenching moments, especially when Peruvian director Claudia Llosa tones down her visual poetry to focus on Jennifer Connelly's achingly beautiful performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 4, 2015

The characters in "Aloft" seem to float over their strong passions, like birds riding on columns of air, without ever alighting.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 4, 2015

A spiritually elevated, visually thrilling movie.

| Jun 1, 2015

One problem with "Aloft" is that the audience is never made to care about Ivan. All we know is that he's repellent.

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 28, 2015

"Adrift" is a more fitting title for this unmoored and glacially paced star vehicle, which prizes exasperating inscrutability over effective storytelling.

| Original Score: 20/100 | May 22, 2015

Aloft is ultimately a movie about our need to keep moving and searching. And at times, it's quite a lovely one.

| May 22, 2015

For all its brooding atmosphere and visual poeticism, the film offers a perspective on the lives of its characters that feels narrow and superficial.

| May 21, 2015

"Aloft" sets up a compelling mystery - how could a loving mother abandon her son? - and then, frustratingly, refuses to solve it.

| May 21, 2015

The entire flashback structure is building toward one of those twist endings that the characters would already know, but that's being deliberately withheld from the audience in an attempt at suspense.

| May 21, 2015

Like a car mirror warning that objects may be closer than they appear, director Claudia Llosa's chilly New Age drama gives off a deceptive sense of depth.

| Original Score: C | May 21, 2015