In this zero-sum drama, despair is catching. But so is the fascination of watching a gifted filmmaker dissect the emotions and motivations of the sinned and sinned-against.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 28, 2016

Prepare for feel-bad cinema. Larraín skilfully manipulates the viewer to feel sympathy for the priests and revulsion for their victim.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2016

We are confronted by their crimes and their false superiority, unable to look away. We must wince. We must pay attention.

| Mar 30, 2016

A masterclass in shifting dramatic tones, as Larraín moves deftly between dark tragicomic colours.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 27, 2016

The Club is written and acted with great skill and remarkable sensitivity to the warped thought processes of paedophiles and their victims.

| Mar 25, 2016

A perfect example of cinema's capacity to confront evil.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 25, 2016

Curiously deranged but powerful.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2016

The film is shot in very dark hues, as if the story doesn't warrant any brightness or colour. It is brilliantly acted and has a real, if very seedy, pathos about it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2016

The Club is a startling and disturbing film in many ways - and replete with ideas.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2016

The Club isn't an easy film to sit through (certainly not if the viewer is Catholic) but it's a dramatically important and deeply contemporary piece of work.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2016

Larrain makes all of his damaged characters somewhat likable and sympathetic (although the likability dims toward the end). Which only makes this meditation on mercy, forgiveness and twisted raw power more disturbing.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 4, 2016

It's an interesting movie, odd and disturbing by design. But it's also effective.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2016

Larrain consciously took on the difficult, complicated themes of faith, truth and guilt here, a commendable task considering that avoiding the topic has been part of why it has escaped confrontation for so long.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 19, 2016

We can't but enjoy the movie and its oddball characters - which makes us somehow complicit in their crimes.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 19, 2016

However artful Larraín's intentions, these are subjects best regarded with clarity.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 18, 2016

There are a few twists along the way as Larrain expertly explores the nature of sin and redemption before bringing the tale to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 18, 2016

Larraín is clearly critical of the church. "The Club's" tone is cynical, bordering on the satirical, but it's never very funny. Not that it should be.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 18, 2016

Larraín has a powerful knack for depicting human monsters. But he stacks the deck so heavily that at times the film can seem like simple-minded anti-clericalism, and at least some viewers are bound to resist.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 18, 2016

The Club isn't really about molestation or politics so much as it is about the mysterious netherworld of guilt, shame, fear, and righteousness, and how those things sometimes become tangled together.

| Feb 12, 2016

It's a movie that almost doesn't reveal its brilliance until it's over, as one ponders its themes and appreciates its deft, light touch.

| Feb 12, 2016