The film uses Magdalena as both a viewer surrogate and witness, stranding her in a series of agonizing real-time set pieces and letting the stray details of place and culture speak eloquently for themselves.

| Jul 19, 2021

A sunrise stains a lake pink, a violent flashback is blurry and unsubtitled; Valadez's expressionist images give texture to the abstract emotions of rage and pain.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2021

This film is a cry of rage or a cry for help, on behalf of people in Mexico who have been abandoned to lawlessness, corruption and the vast market forces created by its northern neighbour.

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

An austere, gorgeously shot parable of chaos and loss in modern Mexico, "Identifying Features" is an assured directorial debut from Fernanda Valadez...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 29, 2021

Making her feature debut, Mexican writer-director Fernanda Valadez finds a personal tragedy within a national one... She's made a humanitarian lament by way of a slow-burn thriller.

| Original Score: A | Jan 23, 2021

Equal parts odyssey, investigation and descent, this eerily shattering dispatch from the heart of a grief-beset country... has the power to expand our notions of what a border story is.

| Jan 23, 2021

Identifying Features peels back that feel-good façade of the 'coming to America' narrative for a much more painful reality, one that feels freshly steeped in tears, heartache, and headlines.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 22, 2021

Magdalena is a woman driven by her need for answers, and while "Identifying Features" doesn't provide all of them, it offers a rich window into the search for the truth.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 22, 2021

An unsettling feeling hums through the film, and remains well after. Less of a jolt, then; call it a sustained current.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 22, 2021

Valdez's artistic, disturbing drama grows in intensity as Magdalena confronts a mother's ultimate nightmare.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 21, 2021

Though it is a somber story, the film is enlivened and energized by striking, purposeful images.

| Jan 21, 2021

The film is as much about the act of seeing and observing as it is about not seeing, about struggling to recognize that which might not clarify much at all.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 19, 2021

Signals an exciting arrival by a much-needed voice.

| Jul 9, 2020

This is a confident, accomplished and distinctive feature directorial debut, even if one can't help being exasperated that so little is learned about the relevant issues by watching it.

| Jan 31, 2020

[An] impressive and quietly compelling debut feature from Fernanda Valadez.

| Jan 24, 2020