'Still Life' filmmaker Uberto Pasolini delivers a subtle and caring statement on navigating grief through terrific leads James Norton and young newcomer Daniel Lamont.

| May 20, 2024

It had all the potential to be a weepy you'd avoid, but it's really quite sensitive, powerful, and beautifully acted.

| May 13, 2024

For a film about loneliness and death, it’s tender, intelligent and life-affirming without ever being maudlin and mawkish. A rare and distinguished film indeed.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 3, 2024

Intimate rather than maudlin, this sensitive, vulnerable feature shapes into a beautiful testament to the undaunting love between a father and a son, and the ultimate gift that an ill dad can give his child.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 2, 2024

Lighter moments aside, “Nowhere Special” doesn’t sugarcoat its heartbreaking premise. The film is essentially a two-hander between Norton and Lamont, both of whom give excellent, complementary performances.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 1, 2024

Writer-director Uberto Pasolini lets all of this play out without grandstanding. The filmmaker doesn't embellish.

| Apr 29, 2024

There are so many ways to go wrong with this story, which we are told was inspired by an unidentified real father and son. [Pasolini] does not let that happen, relying on the most ordinary details to take on greater and greater weight.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 26, 2024

That is a five-hankie premise if ever there was one, but in the hands of writer-director Uberto Pasolini and lead actor Norton, it truly becomes a movie, not just a concept masquerading as one.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 25, 2024

Norton is spectacular, but little Lamont delivers one of those uncanny performances that doesn’t seem like acting, and makes you feel for the kid almost as much as his onscreen parent does.

| Apr 25, 2024

Uberto Pasolini’s intimate family drama trains a pleasingly unsentimental lens on a heart-wrenching scenario.

| Apr 17, 2024

Norton’s performance dominates, with a battered, hangdog demeanour and the most syllable-perfect Belfast accent since Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father.

| Jul 12, 2023

This unsentimental approach to potentially maudlin material is impressive.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 30, 2022

Norton shows his depths here with a finely judged turn, bouncing between anger, frustration, affection and despair. It’s a strong film all around, poised and more delicately emotional than the subject might suggest.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2022

Be warned: you will need to keep a box of tissues to hand, if not all the tissues in the world.

| Jul 29, 2021

The film is understated rather than mawkish.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2021

By their nature, modest stories are easily overlooked. Give Pasolini's "little" film a chance, though, and the specialness of this project will blow you away.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2021

Uplifting in its own understated way.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 16, 2021

Obvious parallels will be drawn with similarly themed productions from the likes of Mike Leigh and the Dardennes , but there is also something decidedly Italian neo-realist about it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 15, 2021

The very simplicity of Nowhere Special is a mighty risk. Against such a plain backdrop, the mawkish would glare out horribly. The condescending likewise. This poignant, careful film is neither.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2021

In spite of myself I invested totally in Norton's spine-tingling, intimate performance; and, in spite of myself, the end had me in floods of tears.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2021