...contrasts the experience of living in a tight-knit minority community with the threats posed to that community by so-called urban renewal, a.k.a. gentrification.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 16, 2025

A slice-of-life portrait of familial and neighborhood changes in Miami’s Little Haiti.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2025

Slight yet powerful, this nuanced exploration of a working-class Haitian family’s experience with immigration and gentrification carries cultural specificity and universal resonance.

| Dec 20, 2024

Sorelle’s debut is a pleasant exploration of ideas and characters that are close to her heart, and she is able to set the film apart from its peers by her connection to the material.

| Nov 13, 2024

Sorelle’s gentle beauty of a film is no downer, reflecting a resilient culture that refuses to be bulldozed over to make way for luxury homes.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 16, 2024

That is also where the film takes a stand; rebelling against that gentrification—that Americanization—of their spirits and urging them to hold tight to who they are. Which, ironically, has always been the American way.

| Oct 10, 2024

It’s the kind that dares us to look back and consider what it means to create a home away from the shores where you were born, in a country hostile not just to your betterment but to your very survival.

| Oct 1, 2024

Low-key, naturalistic yet potent looks at difficult working-class family dynamics...

| Sep 27, 2024

A convincing riposte to the anti-immigrant rhetoric, Mountains is a tender portrait of a Haitian family taking making a home in America.

| Original Score: A_ | Sep 25, 2024

Mountains yearns for the enchantment (and topography) of a Caribbean motherland that's just out of reach, and it mourns a present that is shifting much too quickly for so many of us to find our bearings.

| Sep 17, 2024

“Mountains” immerses us in its universe because the filmmakers want to make clear what will be lost by the current and impending gentrification of the area.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 13, 2024

The way Mountains speaks to a particular culture yet plays as a relatable family drama is the kind of thing I find immensely rewarding.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 12, 2024

“Mountains” does what it sets out to do with grace, and a sure instinct for music, color, faces and moments of decision regarding where we’ve come.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 29, 2024

The strength of Sorelle’s storytelling hinges on how she divulges these points not in verbose dialogue or forced confrontations, but through the ambivalent emotions that coat all human drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 27, 2024

…issues of gentrification, the disconnect between immigrants and their American born children, the American Dream, racism and the importance of culture within ethnic communities all embedded within an intimate family drama.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 26, 2024

It’ll be a challenge to find another film character this year with a richer, more realized internal life.

| Original Score: A | Aug 23, 2024

[Mountains] is too low-key to leave much of an impression. But as a portrait of intergenerational tensions in an immigrant family, it is poignant, and it captures an area of Miami that is rarely seen onscreen.

| Aug 22, 2024

Sorelle is patient and observant, having a palpable affection for these characters and trusting us enough to see what she sees in them. We do.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2024

Mountains is dedicated to chronicling existences upended by a process benefiting the bourgeoise.

| Aug 19, 2024

A generational story of change and of trying to make peace with differences across time and place. [...] Mountains is an ode to what it means to feel at home and just how precarious that feeling is.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2024