Herself stays formally interesting in its use of jagged flashback structure and a woe-filled but fiery monologue about the treatment of women, wives and mothers from Dunne.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 23, 2024

It's got foundations rooted in reality. The body off the house is in-between the dream and the fulfillment, and it's roof has its head in the air...I enjoyed it very much.

| Sep 21, 2021

Lloyd makes something genuinely nightmarish of the worst attacks, but Dunne's creased vulnerability ... keeps us tethered to waking reality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2021

Dunne, who also co-wrote the script, brings admirable grit and pathos to her character without allowing her to become a victim. Still, the film's abrupt tonal shifts are jarring.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 11, 2021

Herself is smart in the way it balances the importance of individual charity and the need for wider reform - one provides the hope, the other provides the answers.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 10, 2021

Lloyd's radical fairytale is enchanting.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 10, 2021

This is never maudlin and never tips into sentimentality. Lloyd's direction is so sure and restrained that she somehow manages to balance the raw, hard-hitting, viscerally impactful scenes with the lighter, hopeful ones.

| Sep 9, 2021

Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd takes a welcome swerve into social realism for this visceral drama...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 9, 2021

There's a strong basis of originality here, and the warmth and good nature of the movie carries it along.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 9, 2021

Herself tells a compelling story, but combining a tough realist drama about domestic abuse and homelessness with an optimistic tale of solidarity weakens the foundations of this otherwise admirable film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 8, 2021

Herself doesn't take the easy road but it's that choice which makes it such a human story.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 4, 2021

Herself is a small, modest film but a surprisingly powerful one thanks mainly to Dunne's portrait of a courageous, resilient woman...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 3, 2021

The script is smart enough to avoid the usual feelgood cliches and sentimental flourishes and Lloyd's cast of plain-speaking British and Irish actors ensures that everybody remains firmly in touch with the gritty realities.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 30, 2021

It's filled with touching scenes that reflect a mother's resilient devotion to her children as she strives to shape a better life.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 16, 2021

[A] perfectly beautiful and very moving movie.

| Jan 12, 2021

Some of the major beats in "Herself" verge on cliché but everything in between rings true thanks to Dunne's steadfast performance and the film's delicate sense of humanity.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 12, 2021

Herself ticks off all the standard boxes of restoring faith in humanity, but it is a temporary and unmemorable high.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 12, 2021

The sudden acknowledgement that a person you once loved doesn't exist anymore can knock the wind out of you, and Dunne captures that breathless free fall beautifully.

| Jan 12, 2021

In the end, this tender drama feels like an Irish proverb spun in light, warning of cruelty and promising care, all with a crisp wit.

| Jan 11, 2021

"Herself" is more honest than most about the PTSD of partner abuse, and in Dunne's nuanced and heartfelt performance we see the inner strength that keeps Sandra going at war with the terror that never goes away.

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