Early Alejandro González-Iñarritu called. He wants his style back.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 28, 2020

There's a difference between pursuing a personal vision and wallowing in your own fetishes, as writer/director Claudia Llosa has done here.

Full Review | Jan 10, 2020

All that Aloft wants to do is to tell a story about a son and his mother, surrounding it with spiritual themes and metaphors involving falconry. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 1, 2018

When the film is over, the story seems rather less interesting than it might have been had it played out more conventionally, though it also seems unfinished.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2017

Aloft may have arisen from some unique personal mythology of maternalism, but it's brought down by abridgment, freezing out the feeling of whatever tragic pietà its maker may intend.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2017

The characters feel like sketches, and the pace never deviates from its steady course.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2017

While Iñárritu's work usually boasts some compensatory visual delight, this film drifts on its twenty-year timeline in a sepia-toned, handheld series of close-ups that look less gritty than just plain bad.

Full Review | Aug 2, 2017

Aloft can sometimes be too slow-paced and enigmatic for its own good, the presence of these two actors helps to elevate Llosa's film to a higher level of cinematic prowess.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2016

Aloft keeps us at a distance -- a problem for a film about spirituality that gives little critique or insight into the mythical healing process it is about.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Feb 25, 2016

A sad and dreamy drama with many New Age touches and a fondness for lingering over barren tundra that stands as a metaphor for its sense of loss.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 12, 2015

It's bleak and beautiful at the same time.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2015

An atmospheric but vague movie that functions like a therapy session, counseling acceptance and forgiveness via a storyline that seems pinched and forced in relation to the wide open spaces of the images.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 5, 2015

For much of the film, the audience is busy connecting dots between the two storylines to figure out what happened between mother and son. But the lines that get drawn are unsatisfying.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 24, 2015

... a beautiful slog, a needlessly complicated allegory that supplies us with some fraught falcon imagery and a couple of affecting moments before evaporating before our eyes, leaving us with the vague suspicion that we've missed some larger point.

Full Review | Original Score: 83/100 | Aug 20, 2015

A story that's meant to be about profoundly heartbreaking life moments somehow winds up feeling purely theoretical.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 24, 2015

Just when you're ready for "Aloft" to take wing, it ends.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 10, 2015

Vague, unsatisfying, emotionally distant parable about family tragedy and the healing power of art.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 3, 2015

Connelly, with her signature brand of serene toughness, does tragedy very well, but she doesn't really have a character to play here; just an endless series of tight close-ups and troubled expressions.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 2, 2015

Aloft's characters exude a certain impregnability, and the story's structure only further distances us from them.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 25, 2015

Doesn't work as a whole, but it's wise enough where it counts, briefly understanding the sophistication of grief, relationships, and guilt.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jun 25, 2015