Sweet Land Reviews

Ali Selim's visual masterpiece recalls the stark artistry of Terrence Malick and Western lyricism of Larry McMurtry, as it turns every frame into a picture postcard of stunning beauty.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Exceptionally photographed and remarkably performed by actors Tim Guinee and Elizabeth Reaser, Sweet Land is modest, but demonstrative, eager to detail a love story that sustains for a lifetime.

Full Review | Original Score: A

At once epic and intimate, Sweet Land offers a stirring account of love and hardship which, aside from a muffed Capra moment towards the end, hardly puts a foot wrong.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Nostalgic, gentle, loving: the elegiac mood set against endless rural space inevitably suggests Malick's Days of Heaven. What next from this considerable talent?

Full Review

Our movie of the week - which isn't saying much - arrives in the shape of this atmospheric slice of Americana about an arranged marriage deep in the heart of rural Minnesota.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Pleasant surprise of the week, a US indie so unashamedly romantic about pie, cornfields, family and baseball you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a Presidential campaign video.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Here is a nicely photographed, but bland, insipid and weirdly passive-aggressive little film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Minnesota between the wars is a bone yard for dreams, yet, like Babette's Feast, the film plucks a tiny miracle from stony ground.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Sweet Land could have been mawkish and overly sentimental, but Selim has a light touch and the film is intelligent, sensitive and sweet.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Echoing Malick's 'Days of Heaven' in the way it captures the majesty of the American countryside, this is a small gem that's worth seeking out.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

The son of an Egyptian immigrant, the Minnesota born Selim demonstrates a startling intimacy and empathy for his characters, but infuses his story with a candid tough love for their weaknesses.

Full Review

Characters' motivations and behaviours wobble all over the map - even within single scenes - making for a profoundly frustrating and disappointing experience for viewers.

Full Review | Original Score: 63/100

It's not a film to watch when you're tired.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Sweet Land isn't so silly as to say 'love conquers all', but it reminds us, sometimes ecstatically, that love can conquer a lot.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

An old-fashioned family drama masquerading as an art film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

a gentle, well-observed drama... old-fashioned but in a good sense. ...Reaser and Guinee are such open, animated actors that Inge and Olaf's emotions are easily understandable even if their words are not.

Full Review

A torturously slow meditation on the tribulations of immigrant farmers that strains for an elegiac tone.

Full Review

The low budget hasn't prevented the filmmakers from taking care with details. The film's almost palpable: You feel the coldness of the blue, forbidding sky and smell the bristling dustiness of the harvest-ready wheat.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Selim erases the cultural barrier between the eras and makes Olaf and Inge's tentative, forbidden romance seem as beautiful and as tender, and as urgent, as anything that might happen in the present day.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

A film of uncommon grace, one that transports you to an America that seems innately familiar even though you have never seen it depicted on-screen quite like this before.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4