Mammoth 2009

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Too many films exploit the perils faced by children when the social contract is ruptured, but Mammoth earns its cruel, sensationalistic turns and then some. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Mammoth manages to be as affecting as it is heartfelt. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The movie lacks the personal touch that's distinguished even Moodysson's "difficult" films. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie is at once intimate and (in its softhearted way) preachy. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The overlapping stories, the emotional disconnect, the heavy-handed symbolism -- no, it's not a movie from the makers of Babel, its a mumbling, stammering copycat drama from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Any semblance of subtlety was unfortunately lost in translation. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There are so many reasons to be outraged and depressed by this film, indeed, that it all but distracts from the real and immediate qualities of the four fine actors. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: An interesting idea, but Mammoth's good intentions -- like its characters' -- are lost somewhere in the delivery. Read more

Alissa Simon, Variety: Comes with too much repetitive exposition and lacks an emotional payoff. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: English, Tagalog, and Thai are spoken in Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, but he communicates only in the idiom of Crash and Babel: the Esperanto of feel-bad humanism. Read more