Hadewijch Reviews
Observer [UK]
Dumont's elliptical movie is as stiff as an over-starched wimple and rather tedious, but like earlier films of his it has something that sticks in the mind like the hook in a fish's mouth.
This is London
The script's central paradox - that dogmatic believers are the most adept at switching allegiance - is arresting.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Little White Lies
Challenging, thought provoking and extraordinarily powerful.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Sun Online
As the credits rolled I was both bamboozled and disappointed. I suspect you will be too.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Financial Times
The film never takes us in far enough.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Guardian [UK]
Dumont has an unique ability to create enigmatic, contemporary parables that get under your skin.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Daily Telegraph
Though Dumont sets a painstakingly slow pace, Céline's story feels maddeningly incomplete, and vague both in theological and psychological terms
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
ViewLondon
Hadewijch is a thoughtful piece of raw, austere filmmaking, catering specifically for those interested in serious and adventurous cinema.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Empire Magazine
A controversial exploration of different faiths. Newcomer Julie Sokolowski shows her mettle.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Total Film
The opaque Sokolowski is a real discovery, and this mysterious film builds to its climactic act of salvation...
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Top CriticYou either go with Dumont's arrogant series of conundrums and paradoxes or - as I do - you see them as mere meaningless 'effects' with little rhyme and no reason.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Dumont, as if trying to make sure nobody wants to see his movie, named it after a female Flemish poet from the 13th century, but - please read the rest of this sentence - the movie is set in modern times.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Film Journal International
From would-be nun to fundamentalist accomplice is the unlikely but nonetheless absorbing premise of this stately spiritual study.
Should delight Dumont's fans. For others, it will take a bit of getting used to. The effort will prove to be worthwhile.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
It's a beautiful and mysterious work with a rhythm all its own.
New York Press
Hadewijch goes from austere images of a wintry world to remarkably beautiful images of post-rainfall lushness. From desolation to revelation, humanism becomes visible in every living thing.
With Hadewijch, [Dumont] endorses something like the Dardenne brothers' rugged, squalid secular humanism, offering the barrier-breaking embrace as vague alternative to Despair, Church, or Capital.
Boxoffice Magazine
The story of a young girl's spiritual devotion and the distorted manifestations of faith that follow, Hadewijch maintains the cool reserve that has made director Bruno Dumont famous.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
NewsBlaze
Religious obsession meets raging teen hormones and an irrepressible desire for a date with the deity. And not always with dramatic clarity, while decidedly on the pathological when not celibate kooky erotic side.
Dumont suppresses any information that could bring any of his stick-figure characters to life; he seems to be offering lessons about fanaticism, wealth, power, poverty, and politics, but is merely drawing connections by numbers.
