Shoshana wisely doesn’t attempt to resolve anything that hasn’t been resolved in the actual world.

| Feb 13, 2025

The love affair feels sandwiched in and forgotten at times, while the entire narrative is occasionally jumbled and rushed. Nevertheless, the film is an important reminder that the Middle East has been blowing itself apart for well over a century.

| Original Score: 2.75/5 | Nov 2, 2024

While I thought Shoshana delivered an excellent portrayal of the rising tensions in Palestine at the time, I do wish we had seen more of the tensions and conflict on the Arabs’ side as well.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 14, 2024

Despite its observations on the evils of colonialism, Shoshana does not sufficiently do this. It’s a love story with an underwritten romance and a historical commentary that doesn’t seem to appreciate the enormity of the backdrop it is working with.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 19, 2024

Shoshana considers an entangled view of how violence and retaliation escalate until everyone is culpable. [But] the way Winterbottom frames this story through a lifeless central romance makes the point feel like an afterthought.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 23, 2024

Winterbottom's astute use of newsreel clips grounds the film remarkably, although this almost makes the romance feel like a distracting plot point. But the film's real strength is in Shoshana's arc, because where she ends up is heart-stopping.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 9, 2024

Unfortunately, she ends up being sidelined for entire chunks of the film, becoming a supporting character in her own story...

| Mar 11, 2024

Shoshana doesn't quite put the thrill in "thriller" and gives its eponymous lead a lacklustre romantic biopic format that sidelines her in what is meant to be her own story.

| Mar 8, 2024

The fact that most of what the story tells us is actually true, I think gives it a kind of a real sense of bite that this relationship does become a microcosm of a much wider conflict.

| Mar 6, 2024

Superb acting and espionage flavours carry this serviceable Winterbottom outing into a period in history that, more than ever, demands to be reckoned with.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2024

Based on a true story, this historical drama is a typically rigorous, if slightly unwieldy, tale of love and conflict from British director Michael Winterbottom.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 29, 2024

Now is as good a time as any to better understand Israel, and Michael Winterbottom may be the film-maker best placed to aid us in this understanding.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 28, 2024

Michael Winterbottom is to be commended, I suppose, for going anywhere near a vexed and complex subject, the treatment of which is bound to get someone’s back up.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 23, 2024

Style without the soul.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 23, 2024

Though it’s hard to dismiss the feeling that Winterbottom has bitten off more than he can chew, the procedural elements and performances are solid enough.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 23, 2024

Shoshana diverts its energies by packaging itself as sexy and stylish, which isn’t quite what this drama needs; what’s interesting is the historical detail.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 22, 2024

The movie is costumed, staged and acted with intelligence and care although, after a while, whenever you see a street scene in wide shot, quiet for a few seconds, you tense for the inevitable bomb-blast.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 21, 2024

Like The Goldman Case and Kidnapped, it’s another fact-based drama that might invite some pre-viewing homework.

| Feb 16, 2024

Somehow, the wide canvas here doesn’t present a satisfying picture, despite the echoes of the conflict that continue till today. I almost wished this were a mini-series rather than a movie, so each character could be developed further.

| Jan 31, 2024

Winterbottom's pre-1948 Palestine drama is a compelling insight into the British Mandate, though its central love story is less convincing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 1, 2023