We are held at arm's length, in a literal-minded rendering of alienation that remains tentative and cautious where its anti-heroine was over-the-top monstrous.

| Jun 8, 2020

This is not a film that is a feel good one; on the contrary, it's depressing, sad, and beautiful.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 19, 2020

While Kazda and Weinreb convey a sound psychological portrait of a distressed mind, this downtrodden character study, despite a fine lead performance, often feels slave to its own misery.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 8, 2019

Kazda and Weinreb offer a humanistic approach to the life of an abused, damaged, and tragic woman, whose actions were despicable, but whose existence was torturous.

| Apr 27, 2019

I, Olga Hepnarova will linger in the memory long after the viewer watches it.

| Aug 28, 2018

In a role that would be destroyed by even a whiff of melodrama, I, Olga Hepnarová offers one of the year's strongest performances by a woman on-screen. A film as timely as it is tragic and terrifying.

| Aug 25, 2018

Compositions often emphasize a dehumanizing effect: when Olga is executed, we first see a crowd of observers who step aside one by one until they reveal her dead body hanging there, in the most matter-of-fact way.

| Mar 8, 2018

Impeccably photographed by Adam Sikoria. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 1.75/4 | Nov 21, 2017

The film does not provide a visual background of how Olga arrived at the state in which we find her, does not seek to justify her act or condemn it. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 17, 2017

Michalina Olszanska's convincingly moving performance is undermined by a dull, underwhelming and shallow screenplay.

| Original Score: 5.24/10 | Apr 16, 2017

We're left feeling that Olga herself might find the film expertly mounted but still missing a more visceral, pissed-off tone.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 24, 2017

[Olszanska's] glassy-eyed, understated rendition of a woman who's lost all touch with reality jars us from our senses, despite - or perhaps because of - the filmmakers' clear fascination with their protagonist's sex appeal.

| Mar 23, 2017

Anchored by a startling performance by Michalina Olszanska, the Czech film "I, Olga Hepnarova" is an austere, hypnotic story of sadness, madness and murder.

| Mar 22, 2017

I, Olga Hepnarov is a stoic and sobering character study of a lonely young lesbian murderess shunned by those around her.

| Mar 22, 2017

A serious exploration of the mind of a young woman who seeks revenge for being bullied or ignored by parents, peers, and the whole Czech society.

| Original Score: B | Mar 20, 2017

The filmmakers take few measures to engender sympathy for Olga, but their prismatic take on her life, while novel, precludes making any resonant statements about homosexuality, emotional health, or humankind's capacity for evil.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 20, 2017

Echoing the ethical complexity of Krzysztof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Killing, Weinreb and Kazda offer no easy conclusions, only cruel, confusing realities.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 2, 2016

Easy to admire but hard to recommend.

| Nov 30, 2016

Shot in black and white, with no music and a punishingly relentless rhythm of suffering, this real-life Czech drama is brutally austere.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2016

First-timers Kazda and Weinreb, working from a story by Roman Cilek, struggle to give Hepnarova's story a wider meaning but their visualisations show a clear talent.

| Nov 17, 2016