Monica is beautifully acted, not least in the play-off between Clarkson — alternating weary spikiness with bursts of agonised distress — and the gentle, detached reserve that is Lysette’s main register here.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2023

A film of quiet but considerable power.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 17, 2023

Lysette’s committed, complex performance, in tandem with Clarkson, powers a restrained tale of reunion and resistance with a gender identity twist.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2023

Monica is moody, slow-moving and stronger on style than characterization, yet Lysette and Clarkson endow it with feeling.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 17, 2023

Monica is an intimate look at the complexity of grief, reconciliation and family.

| May 15, 2023

A quiet, heartfelt, and beautifully nuanced drama that feels unique and universal.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 12, 2023

Director Andrea Pallaoro doesn’t burden this delicate tale of reconciliation with long monologues or extensive back stories, and the performances are compelling in their restraint.

| May 11, 2023

Pallaoro refuses to tell this story, co-written by Orlando Tirado, in a conventional and tidy movie-of-the-week manner, which is evident even in the framing of individual shots where main character’s faces are sometimes cut off.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 11, 2023

Placing a uniquely trans story in the center of a well-worn road creates a path to a new sentiment to be granted to a tale that many people have and will face in their life.

| May 8, 2023

Monica is an unsentimental exploration of its main character’s search for personal fulfillment through human connection.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 7, 2023

Monica is a wondrous work in terms of painting with light, in which the select shadows tell their own story.

| Oct 25, 2022

Monica is a gently-paced film that doesn’t pack an obvious emotional punch, but carries rewards for those invested in the characters and the subject matter.

| Sep 6, 2022

This is a tremendously crafted, impeccably intelligent film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2022

Director and co-writer Andrea Pallaoro banishes easy sentiment and proselytising in this touching film, allowing the audience to take a journey with the titular Monica and discover her story on the way.

| Sep 3, 2022

“Monica” raises the bar for trans stories onscreen, and Lysette takes her rightful place as its muse.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 3, 2022

With uncommon sensitivity toward the interior lives of its characters, as well as to the shifting codes of trans representation, “Monica” is a film about making amends, where the person who deserves the apology is also the one doing all the work.

| Sep 3, 2022

The result, alas, doesn’t live up to the promise of the occasion, turning the character’s journey into fodder for a sluggish exercise in formalism.

| Sep 3, 2022

Pallaoro trusts that we can read between the lines and that Lysette can carry many silent scenes where Monica is existing in closed spaces and trying to find some kind of peace.

| Sep 3, 2022