Emotionally commanding.

| Jun 14, 2018

Taut and unexpected, Brothers is gripping from start to finish.

| Feb 28, 2018

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 16, 2006

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 16, 2006

It is a universal story, flashing with both insight and pain the likes of which most mainstream Hollywood pictures can only hint at.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 9, 2005

Bier, honored as an Emerging Master at the Seattle International Film Festival this year, is clearly a director to watch. In her hands, a story that could become melodramatic is gripping and heartbreaking.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 24, 2005

A profoundly affecting movie, one in which our sympathies lie with everyone.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 9, 2005

Feels like an amalgam of newsreel and stage drama, but with the most potent aspects of both art forms.

| Jun 3, 2005

Keeps itself floating above the suds thanks to Bier's crisp and lively visual design, the general loveliness of her cast ... and her attention to small moments of arresting domestic authenticity.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2005

A powerful, brutal, funny, tragic, vibrant, very human movie.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 3, 2005

A beautifully considered marvel of screenwriting.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 3, 2005

Though Brothers is at times unexpectedly harrowing, it is neither a preachy anti-war diatribe nor a triangulated domestic drama, but it does show how even little wars can disrupt the most harmonious families.

| Jun 1, 2005

This is powerful, intelligent filmmaking filled with emotional resonance.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | May 27, 2005

The intentions are admirable, but the movie is only so-so.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 27, 2005

A film potent enough to shock, but beguiling enough to intrigue.

| Original Score: B+ | May 26, 2005

Imaginative and immensely engrossing.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 20, 2005

This is the kind of movie that doesn't solve everything at the end -- that observes some situations are capable not of solution but only of accommodation.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2005

A talented director of ensembles and intimate scenes, Bier again proves herself a powerful, if occasionally overwrought, dramatist.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 19, 2005

Has an exact sense of emotional truth and a respect for the intricacy of character.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 12, 2005

Awkwardly hitched to current events.

Full Review | May 12, 2005