Balsam gives a beautifully natural, realistic performance as Lila - she never feels anything less than wholly authentic.

| Nov 22, 2021

The bucolic setting of the summer place contrasts with life moving on in uncharted directions.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 23, 2020

This is a small drama with a lot of recognizable truth to it, as well as fine performances in complexly written character roles.

| May 18, 2020

A top-notch Talia Balsam.

| May 15, 2020

"South Mountain" is the kind of drama where nothing "happens" but, in fact, there is a great dealing happening for Lila and those around her, just like in a real family.

| Original Score: B | May 11, 2020

Balsam is marvelous throughout, precisely measured in portraying a state often teetering on abjection.

| May 7, 2020

South Mountain suggests that the moments that break us can also give us the space and excuse to grow and re-mold ourselves in new ways. There's joy in those broken spaces.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2020

The female-centric, lo-fi South Mountain is an excellent example of how little a budget matters when all the other puzzle pieces are in place. We need more cinema like this.

| Original Score: 9/10 | May 6, 2020

South Mountain deals with a lot of big picture issues - deception, depression, and vengeance - but navigates through them with the insight of a wiser perspective.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 5, 2020

[Talia Balsam] is just wonderful in this film... It's painful, deep, and moving.

| May 4, 2020

...everything about this small, intimate film feels so natural, lived in and true, Balsam's performance empathetic and generous.

| Original Score: B | May 4, 2020

South Mountain is both a hauntingly unique story of heart break and heart mending, and a classic staple of the character drama form.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 30, 2020

Hardly in the same class as Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" but a perfectly fine look at a breakup in the Catskill mountains.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 29, 2020

Life is complicated, and deserves complex cinema such as this.

| Jan 9, 2020

South Mountain bets in a pure, noble cinema, with pretty decent results, without unnecessary excesses. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 20, 2019

A powerful female-centered drama that is a meditation on loss and healing.

| Original Score: B | Jul 15, 2019

South Mountain is a beautiful meditation on loss, forgiveness, and self-discovery. What does life look like when the most important people begin to leave?

| Jul 14, 2019

"South Mountain" demonstrates a realistically complex conception of stock ideas like "vengeance," "moving on" and "healing," and Ethan Mass's cinematography echoes the material's dualities in its delicate interplay of light and dark.

| Jun 19, 2019

Smart, beautifully written, effortlessly directed...

| Apr 1, 2019

The plot doesn't really develop, instead, like the creeks that weave around the family's house, steadily flows forward through the slow reliability of each day happening after the next.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 18, 2019