The last thing one expected was for the Belgian Dardenne brothers to dote on a murder mystery, particularly one involving a medico turned amateur sleuth that's fraught with coincidence like so much of what's already out there.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 29, 2017

The question that looms large here, lingering long after the closing credits, is whether, despite our human need for forgiveness, absolution is ever truly possible.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 28, 2017

Jenny's search is a quest for atonement, not only for herself, but also for others. A physician of the body, she becomes a kind of physician of the soul, her clinic office a secular confessional, sealed by her ethic of doctor-patient confidentiality.

| Original Score: A | Sep 22, 2017

[Adlle] Haenel's deadpan performance makes this a tough sell, leaving only the common mechanisms of a suspense plot to move the drama forward.

| Sep 21, 2017

"The Unknown Girl" is an imperfect but absorbing addition to the canon, a carefully plotted thriller of conscience in which Jenny spends most of the movie patiently and persistently atoning for her mistake.

| Sep 14, 2017

Every Dardennes movie is worth seeing, and The Unknown Girl has all kinds of gripping undercurrents.

| Sep 8, 2017

An odd fusion of an earnest socially conscious drama and a B-movie mystery programmer that never quite comes together despite a strong performance from Adele Haenel at its center.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 8, 2017

The story is gripping, with a steady drip-drip of twists and turns as a town's familiar buried secrets find their way to daylight.

| Sep 8, 2017

Shot with unassuming lyricism and an eye for everyday detail and full of modest, eloquent performances.

| Sep 7, 2017

In The Unknown Girl, the brothers' durably direct technique shines, even when their storytelling doesn't.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 6, 2017

As we watch Haenel ... stride through these overdetermined scenes, clutching a medical bag to her side, we are reminded that even the most timeworn of conventions can be made electric and alive.

| Sep 5, 2017

One of the strangest aspects of [the Dardennes'] work is their combination of sweeping plot twists and endings that leave the door open to both hopeful and hopeless futures.

| Sep 5, 2017

You think afresh of the film's title and wonder, Who is more unknown here, the nameless victim or the inscrutable doctor?

| Sep 4, 2017

The cast of social outcasts, immigrant victims and fitful Samaritans is very Dardennesque. Missing are the spark and sense of truth that make such components drama.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 27, 2016

The Unknown Girl may be a middling effort by the Dardennes' high standards but it's still an involving, thoughtful watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2016

The main issue, in the grim, rubbish-strewn naturalism of the film, is Jrmie Renier's overwrought performance and the abrupt third act reveal that he delivers.

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

Has its moments, but this time the magic doesn't quite happen.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2016

The doctor's investigation leads to an exploration of the collective burden of guilt in the run-down town of Lige, but the film is rather dull.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2016

Stress is the film's whole motor - the stress Jenny's both carrying around and transmitting, to an assortment of possible witnesses she suspects are hiding something.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2016

Part of the Dardennes' rarity as storytellers is their capacity to recognise not only basic moral character and social circumstances but also mood as pivotal in how things pan out for people.

| Dec 1, 2016