Winter Solstice Critic Reviews

A realistic drama that looks and feels as inevitably true and moving as a good documentary.Read the full review

Story of a still-grieving widower and his two troubled teenage sons is distinguished by its emotional integrity, sustained mood of aching melancholy and superbly understated performances.Read the full review

Sternfeld has created a garden on film that opens up its blooms for us, not in the dark of the movie house, but long after we've left the theater.Read the full review

The movie is not plot-driven, for which we must be thankful, because to force their feelings into a plot would be a form of cruelty. The whole point is that these lives have no plot.Read the full review

Sternfeld's approach is rigorously minimalist, which is a plus since the Winters family is in no way extraordinary or distinctive.Read the full review

I can't think of too many actors who could bring off Jim Winters. LaPaglia manages to convey, wordlessly, the man's inner struggle.Read the full review

The boys, particularly Mr. Webber as Pete, are astonishingly good, and Ms. Monaghan, who looks like a slightly more tomboyish Liv Tyler, makes a deep impression in a minor role. Mr. LaPaglia, of the television series "Without a Trace," brings a tender gravity to the shell-shocked Jim.Read the full review

Ultimately undercut by its fictional elements and its flat characters.Read the full review

So much is unspoken and this slice of reality is so thin and slow as to make the film downright unsatisfying.Read the full review