This is a tough, important film, and one that wields ambivalence like a cudgel.

| Aug 25, 2018

Writer-director-editor Robin Campillo has crafted an unruly yet pointed drama that should intrigue patient viewers.

| Apr 30, 2015

Both surprisingly resonant, and something of a thrill-ride.

| Feb 27, 2015

[Campillo] leaves us, at the end, in an appropriately ambiguous place.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2015

Explores interlocking themes of sexuality, immigration and power dynamics with a cleareyed sensitivity and refuses to demonize even its shadiest characters.

| Feb 26, 2015

By turns a frightening home-invasion drama, a tender love story and a tense hide-and-seek thriller, with far more control over these unsettling tonal slides than initially seems feasible.

| Feb 25, 2015

Campillo thankfully refrains from offering on-the-nose explications for behavior and decisions, instead letting audiences infer psychology and motivation from on-screen behavior.

| Feb 25, 2015

"Eastern Boys" never quite fulfills the promise of those first few minutes.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 25, 2015

What a relief to watch this small, expert film - a pane of glass in a concrete wall - that whispers, that dares to stand still and witness ordinary human pain.

| Feb 24, 2015

A ferocious plea for character salvation within a milieu where money and bodily affect are the raison d'tre for human existence.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 22, 2015

The effect is more redolent of a Gus Van Sant spin on Oliver Twist, not least because of Jeanne Lapoirie's dreamy cinematography (warm orange bodies against icy blue backdrops) and Robin Campillo's lyrical editing.

| Dec 4, 2014

Some films take a while to engage their audience. Others, like Robin Campillo's masterful Eastern Boys, grip you from the very first frame.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 4, 2014

Robin Campillo's drama is sweet and neat, as ambitious as it is gripping.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 4, 2014

This wistful study of migration and acceptance is over-stretched and tonally awkward despite some estimable performances.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 4, 2014

Illegal immigration, unequal relationships and gay sex are put under the microscope in this compelling and slyly urgent drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2014