It makes for ideal viewing during Native American Heritage Month. But parents should be made aware it deals frankly with a variety of issues.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 11, 2021

To Deer's credit, she does not back down from the cruelty that older, white people demonstrate toward the community, including children. (Archival footage of the real incident more than backs up Deer's portrayal.)

| Nov 5, 2021

It's not hard not to feel that an even more resonant film would go deeper into what's underneath these various landmarks of maturity and identity, instead of predominantly just pointing them out.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 5, 2021

This is the first fictional film directed by the documentarian Tracey Deer, and she brings a good eye for which characters might make a compelling story.

| Nov 4, 2021

"Beans" is a thoughtful, stirring reflection by someone who survived it all, quietly demanding acknowledgement not just of her land, but of her life.

| Aug 18, 2021

If rendering their stories artfully through a camera lens opens just one mind, then "Beans" is already an unmitigated triumph.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 28, 2020

An affecting personal spin on recent history.

| Sep 20, 2020

An accessible, unsanitized drama foregrounding Indigenous experience - one that doesn't hedge on depicting embedded Québécois racism and discrimination - [director Tracey Deer] is staking out a fertile patch of filmmaking terrain.

| Sep 18, 2020

Deer's Beans exults as a sweet debut for both her and Kiawentiio.

| Sep 17, 2020

When Beans works, it resonates. And when it doesn't, it's not a tragedy - merely evidence of a filmmaker finding what works for her voice and vision, and what might work better for a highly anticipated follow-up.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 14, 2020

[T]he projection of universal experiences onto this very specific backdrop has a poignancy all its own.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 14, 2020