Above all [...] this is Dequenne’s film, and it’s the devastating ways she shows the life gradually being sucked out of Murielle that makes Our Children so difficult to shake off.

| Nov 4, 2023

Lafosse explores the psychological and political truth beneath the tabloid clichés in a spare but furious attack on patriarchal authority. As tragedy, Our Children is both classical and contemporary.

| Aug 27, 2019

A brilliantly crafted example of contemporary storytelling, Lafosse's Our Children provides us an unique insight into a chillingly believable tale of scandal and subterfuge without ever succumbing to cheap, manipulative techniques.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2019

It's well performed and unflinchingly disturbing, raising bold questions about patriarchy, parenting and mental health.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 5, 2017

It's an interesting way to tell a story and a devastating journey, particularly since it's based on a real-life incident.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 19, 2013

When the inevitable happens, Lafosse's restraint provokes dread - he's given us a real psychological understanding of the unthinkable.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 19, 2013

Challengingly takes the anti-CNN approach to a horrific crime, as upsetting . . . in trying to make the unfathomable credible. . .the film is nuanced and thoughtful.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 13, 2013

This is a taut psychological study, based on a true story, of the complexities of personal power relationships that begins with the kind of shattering revelation that would be the conclusion of most films.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2013

There is no whodunit here -- the horror is plain in the opening shots -- and the how is presented with great restraint, but the why remains veiled and mysterious long after the film has ended.

| Aug 5, 2013

The audience is held in a vise of claustrophobia, and every room seems full of tiny, screaming children.

| Aug 2, 2013

The title can refer to the children whose tragic death the film is based on but more subtly on the dependency of Mounir, a North African, on his adoptive father and that of the wife on Mounir.

| Aug 2, 2013

Lafosse's of the material has the feel of a psychological crime scene investigation.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 2, 2013

Our Children was inspired by a real-life Belgian tragedy, but director Joachim LaFosse has built that news item into his own micro-portrait of coercion dipped in kindness.

| Aug 2, 2013

The film trades in a blank grimness that isn't emotionally involving as much as it is like watching some terrible accident you're helpless to prevent.

| Original Score: C- | Aug 2, 2013

At once beautifully realized and brutally uncompromising ...

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Our Children needs more heightened moments; its emphasis on quotidian frustration, while admirable (and probably accurate), just doesn't get across what ultimately made this woman snap.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 1, 2013

In terms of both plot and style (a string of one-face-then-another handheld shots), Our Children stakes everything on performance.

| Original Score: B | Aug 1, 2013

Aware that a story of such grave human weight and consequence demands to be told exactingly if it is to be told at all, Lafosse's film succeeds most profoundly by refusing to phrase the inevitable question -- how could she? -- as a rhetorical one.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 31, 2013

Expertly avoiding sensationalism, this potently acted drama reminds us of Jean Renoir's celebrated dictum, that everyone has their reasons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2013

This is film-making of a very high order.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2013