This is an often emotionally harrowing depiction of a young idealist running smack into the brutal reality of occupied life.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 27, 2011

This is a wonderfully realized human adventure, the tragedy and heartache inherent in warfare coupled with inner bursts of heroism magnetically brought to life first frame to last.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2011

Writer-director Martin Koolhoven hits just the right balance of domesticity and oppression here, setting up the film's tense second half with sweet early touches of naivete.

| Original Score: B | Apr 29, 2011

It's got a grown-up artfulness, but "Winter in Wartime" could become a lot of boys' favorite movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2011

What makes "Winter" really special is its complex exploration of the theme of heroism.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2011

Director Martin Koolhoven's film about one boy's struggle to make sense of the absurd - of the inhumanity of war and its effects on everyone around him.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 21, 2011

Winter in Wartime benefits from top-notch production values and a sturdy performance from its young lead, Martijn Lakemeier.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 14, 2011

There's the potential for rich psychological head games here, and "Winter in Wartime'' flirts with them before giving itself over to contrivances.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 7, 2011

It's an affecting, if somewhat flavorless, journey.

| Original Score: B | Apr 2, 2011

View the Second World War through a child's eyes and the result isn't hard to predict: a loss-of-innocence tale. Winter in Wartime is the boilerplate version, with the already dramatic facts of the era ramped up to melodramatic levels.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 1, 2011

Perhaps best suited to young teens, who will get a peer's view of life during wartime that will make them question what they would do, were they to face similar circumstances.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 31, 2011

Koolhoven is able to strip away both visually and mentally our idealized cinematic notions of how the resistance fighters lived. It's a lonely existence. It's stark and it's scary. And it makes for a compelling movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 24, 2011

The film is stirring and visually beautiful but not quite interesting enough, morally or formally, to be first-rate.

Full Review | Mar 21, 2011

"Winter in Wartime" may serve as a useful way to introduce teens to what World War II in Europe was like.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 18, 2011

The movie immerses you in the consciousness of a restless boy desperate for initiation into the rest of his life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 17, 2011

Koolhoven elicits strong performances in the handsomely photographed feature but fails to sustain tension, creating a work that's smooth and reassuring, never truly gripping.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 17, 2011

Carefully written, sensitively directed and beautifully acted...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 16, 2011

Koolhoven's philosophical probing of human limitation among the good guys is all but overwhelmed by his commercial instincts and undeniable skill at juggling realism with genre.

| Mar 15, 2011

Winter in Wartime is nothing more or less than a skillfully directed, good-looking coming-of-age tale.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 13, 2011

There are no great surprises anywhere in Martin Koolhoven's film, but it's a pleasing piece of craftsmanship.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2010