| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Bergman wants the viewer to empathize more with the characters' perseverance than their pain, and he pulls it off, thanks to his sharp eye, compassion, and humor, and of course to the performances -- particularly that of the luminous Maron.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 3, 2004

[Bergman] draws fine performances from the actors.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2004

It's not until the film is over that we fully appreciate the originality of an Israeli film that focuses completely on the family crisis while leaving politics behind altogether.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 2, 2004

Broken Wings has heart and a poetic soul.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 30, 2004

Well-made, if rather predictable, new-age melodrama.

Full Review | Apr 21, 2004

Writer-director Bergman's debut doesn't have stylistic pizazz, and some of its scenes sag a little under the weight of mournful music. But the story is told with stirring simplicity that builds momentum.

| Apr 21, 2004

The performances are uniformly strong.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 15, 2004

Broken Wings tells the kind of story that only a cinematic neophyte would find novel. But it tells that story with such emotional nuance, and with such fine performances, that it somehow feels fresh.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 15, 2004

While there's nothing ordinary about Bergman's accomplished family story, the line resonates with the director's own philosophy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 9, 2004

The excellence of the acting and Bergman's keen eye and ear make us hope for the family.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 9, 2004

A believable, tender story of how a terrible crisis can turn out to have a positive, transforming effect on a family as long as there is love.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 8, 2004

Maron, a lovely young actress with a gift for soulful silence, does some heartbreaking work.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 2, 2004

It reminds us, after all, that throughout the world, all family feeling is local.

| Apr 1, 2004

Broken Wings is not a great film. But it's a good, solid one that should connect with intelligent audiences as strongly here as it did abroad.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 1, 2004

A sensitive and well-observed drama that, while not breaking new ground, marks its director-screenwriter as someone to watch.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2004

This intimate, warmly made family portrait always feels true.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 19, 2004

Grief is never ordinary, so while the bereaved Israeli family at the center of first-time writer-director Nir Bergman's delicate tone poem may be unremarkable, their suffering is singular.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 12, 2004

Nir Bergman's aching domestic drama concerns an Israeli family of five shattered by the recent death of the father.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 11, 2004

Touching, real and superbly acted.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 11, 2004