[Jessica Hausner's] thought experiment is an emotionally potent one.

| Sep 24, 2014

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 17, 2011

[An] aesthetically and tonally controlled knockout.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 21, 2010

One of the most observant -- and enigmatic -- movies of the year.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 13, 2010

Spiritually flawed and often cynical though Hausner's pilgrims undoubtedly are, they're all too recognisably human.

| Jul 6, 2010

In a film rich with provocative questions, Hausner audaciously examines the ambivalent nature of miracles. Are they gifts from a loving God or random occurrences, bereft of any moral or meaning?

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 1, 2010

Hausner manages and controls our expectations in this superbly subtle, mysterious and brilliantly composed film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 26, 2010

At the heart of the film is Sylvie Testud, one of the most beguiling actresses in the world, and whom I would happily pay to watch do nothing more than sleep for 24 hours.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 25, 2010

A film featuring the kind of compelling, textured female character that most serious Hollywood actresses would trade at least a decade's worth of Botox to get their claws into.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 25, 2010

This film is both good and powerful. It saves the God debate, still intact, for another round. It is as magically, richly ambivalent as life itself.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 25, 2010

A cucumber-cool satire which views the poetry and passion of spiritual faith through a prism of rigid bureaucracy and ruthless logic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2010

This is as much a subversive black comedy as a reverential treatise on spirituality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2010

A provocative and surprising pleasure that may persuade even the most hardened rationalists to reconsider what religion means as a sanctity to those who have few other choices in life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2010

Beautifully led by birdlike Sylvie Testud as an ailing young woman in a wheelchair, every character (pilgrim and helper alike) exhibits a soul. And shaped with confident talent by the Austrian filmmaker, every serenely composed shot matters.

| Original Score: A | Mar 3, 2010

A paralyzed young woman with MS stands up and walks in Lourdes, but it'll be a real miracle if anyone manages to stay awake throughout this extravagantly dull film.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 19, 2010

Lourdes starts from the unexpected position of believing miracles are possible, but it doesn't paper over the religious and practical problems they raise -- for the blessed and bereft alike.

| Original Score: B | Feb 18, 2010

Adventurous filmgoers will be rewarded by its unusually open-ended storyline.

Full Review | Feb 18, 2010

Jessica Hausner, an Austrian working here in French, wants to explore the mysteries of life, not its certainties.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 17, 2010

Lourdes ultimately eschews rigorous religious inquiry to study the mechanics of envy and frustrated desire.

| Feb 16, 2010

A deliberately paced examination of Catholic mysticism with sharp sprinkles of magical realism.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 15, 2010