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Critics Consensus: A tragic, hard-hitting story about a teenager trapped in a life of prostitution.
Critic Consensus: A tragic, hard-hitting story about a teenager trapped in a life of prostitution.
All Critics (69) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (11) | DVD (3)
[Moodysson] dives into the soul of a 16-year-old Estonian girl and tears you apart.
A wrenching feel-bad movie graced by a luminous central performance.
It tells a heartbreaking story, one of those tales that need to be told and about which only pain can be felt.
It is Akinshina's presence and performance that make the pedestrian story heart-wrenching.
... a fantastic movie.
What Lilja 4-Ever has in common with the greatest films is its spiritual transcendence. Don't miss it.
After making such a brilliant splash with his first two films -- Show Me Love and Together -- the Swedish director Lukas Moodysson seems to dry up in Lilya 4-ever.
The social questions it raises are real enough; its sentimentality is what makes one doubt Moodysson is Ingmar Bergman's heir. Not by a long sob.
Lilya 4-Ever gives us a glorious, heart-wrenching debut performance in the lead, as auspicious as any in the history of cinema."
A harsh dramatic brew, Lilya 4-Ever is a monumental, abrasive document of a young life flushed down the drain; it's an exceptional, deafening humanitarian alarm that will continue to overwhelm and outrage for years to come.
So seamless and relentlessly powerful that the social-realism of not just this film, but the genre itself, is pushed to its limit. Acting and action that rips so deeply, you'll feel you've got to do more than simply watch.
It is undeniable that Moodysson's work has a raw emotional power that transcends most of the film's flaws.
A tragic and devastating film that should make us aware of something horrific that happens to so many teenage girls in Eastern Europe, and if you decide to watch it without knowing anything about it, it may perhaps be an even more shocking and compelling experience.
Super Reviewer
Kicking off with some Rammstein, Lilya 4-Ever demands your attention before settling down. It doesn't rain, it pisses it down in Lilya 4-Ever. A dark and depressing drama set in Eastern Europe. Lilya is a young girl with dreams of escaping her impoverished lifestyle. She believes that she is moving to America with her mother and her new boyfriend. Instead she is abandoned and soon finds life to be dark and cruel. Everybody takes advantage of her, from her best friend to her own auntie. Lilya becomes life's punching bag. It soon makes her bitter and prefers hope over logic. She ignores the warnings of the only other decent character in the story. A young boy who tries to make her question the promises others make. Certainly not empowering, nor is it enjoyable. What Lilya 4-Ever does offer, is an unsentimental portrayal of betrayal. A beautiful look at some very ugly truths.
A masterpiece made by a talented swedish director. If this movie doesn't get some emotions from you, you probably have a heart of stone... An amateur cast provides nothing less than an all-star performance.
Ah, talk about a film that rips out your heart and stomps on it a few hundred times for good measure...
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