The cast's commendable commitment can't hide the film's overall lack of ambition and scope.

Full Review | Feb 12, 2019

With the action jumping backwards and forwards in time, the plot is not always easy to follow, and a gratuitous lesbian romance does little to disguise the fact that the underlying story has run badly out of steam long before the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 24, 2017

Respectably put together but inert ...

Full Review | Apr 3, 2017

It's the kind of dud in which the bad decisions pile up as you watch.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2017

So tasteful it's torturous, Despite the Falling Snow is a Cold War espionage thriller for those who like their period-piece action airless and derivative.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2017

Unfortunately, the strong cinematography from David Johnson and costume design by Momirka Bailovic can't overcome a lifeless, poorly structured script from Sarif, based on her own well received novel.

Full Review | Mar 30, 2017

Despite its best intentions, Shamim Sarif's Cold War spy melodrama wastes star Rebecca Ferguson's talents and charisma.

Full Review | Mar 29, 2017

While it struggles to find rhythm, you can't fault Sarif's ambitions.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 30, 2016

A dreary, incompetently plotted and flatly directed Cold War melodrama ...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 17, 2016

It is a wearily predictable tale of coincidence and tragedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 17, 2016

Writer-director Shamim Sarif... is aiming to create a tragic romance out of this intrigue yet misses her target thanks to her contrived plotting and trite dialogue.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 15, 2016

So many shivery night-time clinches in Moscow fill Despite the Falling Snow's modest runtime, you wonder what proportion of the budget went on that ever-whirring snow machine.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 15, 2016

There's great potential here, but the execution is far too clunky.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 15, 2016

It's a taut and talky film, nicely played by all concerned. But given the big themes, it is a rather small affair with few cinematic qualities.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 14, 2016

It's all very Mills & Boonsky, with plinky piano music and overwrought strings trying to do what the screenplay doesn't, and generate some excitement. Alas, that doesn't work either.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2016

It just doesn't work.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2016

It features laborious acting and directing, and a screenplay whose revelations are uninteresting, even were they not guessable long in advance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2016

For all its invocations of Russian history, this is a glorified telenovela at heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 14, 2016

This hackneyed endeavour struggles to free itself from the shackles of the genre tropes and expectations, never quite doing justice to the originality of the narrative at hand.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 13, 2016

It's as if a quickly discarded, crumpled-up concept was pilfered from John le Carré's waste basket by a romance novelist.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 11, 2016