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Brothers
Metascore
76 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 30
  3. Negative: 1 out of 30
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    A triumph of psychological drama, owing as much to Ms. Bier's sensitive style as to Anders Thomas Jensen's smart screenplay, based on Bier's own story idea.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    100
    Imaginative and immensely engrossing film.
  3. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    100
    Brothers takes a scenario as old as Genesis – two jealous siblings spar over the affections of the same woman – and renders it fresh and immediate, by virtue of the warm, almost maternal, generosity director Susanne Bier shows her characters.
  4. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    91
    We do live in a fraught world of interconnections, Bier makes clear, and what happens far away matters, in unexpected ways, close to home.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    90
    Everyone involved -- actors, crew, director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen in their second collaboration -- are in peak form in this unflinching look at repressed feelings and emotional devastation.
  6. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    90
    Gripping from start to finish.
  7. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    A drama of uncommon moral complexity, unexpected humor, convincing transformations (for good and bad) and, best of all, vibrant, unpredictable energy. In a movie landscape littered with dead souls, here's a live one.
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  8. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    The central performance in Brothers is by Connie Nielsen, who is strong, deep and true.
  9. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    Brothers is about how people change, how they can rise to an occasion, or sink to one. It's a tale of love and allegiance, of truth and the cruelties that men can bring to bear on one another.
  10. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    88
    A powerful, brutal, funny, tragic, vibrant, very human movie.
  11. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    88
    The two male leads, bulwarks of the Danish film industry for more than a decade, play off each other like the veterans they are.
  12. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    83
    These three central performances, and a solid script by Anders Thomas Jensen and director Susanne Bier, ground a potentially overwrought story in genuine feeling.
  13. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Paula Nechak
    83
    It's a quiet anti-war film full of lovely, heartbreakingly assured performances and real situations and responses.
  14. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    80
    A beautifully acted, graceful, and intelligent film that usefully dramatizes the gulf between Fortress Bush and the relativist politics of Western Europe.
  15. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    80
    The end result was that the performances reached a remarkable level of intimacy and intensity.
  16. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    Filmed in the unadorned Dogme style and acted with a ferocious intensity.
  17. Variety
    Reviewed by: Gunnar Rehlin
    80
    The second collaboration between helmer Susanne Bier and scriptwriter Anders Thomas Jensen once again shows what skilled artists can do with a story that might have ended up filled with cliches.
  18. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    80
    There's such a sense of overall intensity, you know you have been though something powerful.
  19. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Robert K. Elder
    75
    While the film's strength lies in an ensemble effort, it's really Sarah and Jannik who provide the film with its most compelling characters, its momentum and, ultimately, its heart.
  20. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    75
    At its core, Susanne Bier's wrenching portrayal of the shifting dynamics within a Danish family is really about survival, about how we cope in the face of shattering grief and what we'll do -- anything, really -- to save ourselves.
  21. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    75
    Tapping into the basest fears of war while subverting all expectations, director Susanne Bier deftly reads between the headlines.
  22. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    Director Susanne Bier is helped by a well-chosen cast, especially the glowing Nielsen, a Danish-born actress best known for American films like "Gladiator."
  23. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    Piercingly co-written and directed by Susanne Bier, the movie dramatizes one man's collapse and the other's surprising maturation.
  24. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    70
    What sets Bier's film apart from similar fare are the consistently fine performances and powerful scenes of surprising ferocity.
  25. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    A movie so nice she made it twice, Susanne Bier's Dogme-certified feature "Open Hearts" gets a slight makeover in her follow-up Brothers, another raw melodrama about three lives recalibrated by sudden tragedy.
  26. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    70
    Danish director Susanne Bier elicits wonderfully intimate performances from her actors, and this 2004 drama has so many genuine, low-key encounters it manages to overcome a contrived and familiar plot.
  27. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    67
    It's interesting and well-performed, but it's no Cain and Abel.
  28. Empire
    Reviewed by: Dan Jolin
    60
    Sounds rather soapy and melodramatic, but director Susanne Bier, assisted by an able cast, ensures the traumas are painfully realistic and subtly observed.
  29. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    50
    Brothers emerges as no less or more than Bier's claustrophobic compositions and unimaginative choices.
  30. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    30
    Bier's portrayal of the brothers' interplay holds few surprises, and the exploitation of the war between East and West is vulgar, contrived and borderline racist.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 11 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 9
  3. Negative: 1 out of 9
  1. Stephen
    7
    Pretty fair effort all round from Bier, well cast and acted, filmed with vigour straight from the Danish Dogme Director’s Digest, which means the fine details of Scandinavian birthday-cake protocol will be just so. The leading three are excellent - Ulrich Thomsen as the traumatised Danish soldier with the horrible Afghanistan secret that dares not speak its name, Connie Nielsen as his baffled wife, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as his sexy but unreliable brother. The only piece of casting that I wasn’t sure of was Spain playing Afghanistan, but I guess it keeps the insurance down.… Full Review »
  2. DawnJ.
    8
    The strengths of the movie lie in its unflinching portrayal of the very personal complexities of war. Two families are impacted-Michael's own wife and daughters and the wife and son of Niels Peter, a townsman and fellow soldier who shares his prison cave. It is in the comparison of these two families in which the film's conflict lies. We get a brief snapshot of Neils Peter's family when Michael visits her upon his return. The cropping is close; the camera closes in on a spare white kitchen table. Niels Peter's wife Ditte sit at the table, alone in her grief and longing. The film spends much more time on Sophia's family of two roustabout girls and the constantly present brother Jannik. The scope is expansive, dynamic. The range of laughter and tears is photographed in a medley of shots against a background of colors, textures, hammers, saws, and bustle. Clearly, progress is being made, particularly before Michael's return. There is no sugar coating of post-trauma life, no sentimentalized view of family. The performances are uniformly strong, the photography intense, the music good. The story leaves us with questions: Why do Jannik and Sophia not consummate their desire? Why do the brothers' parents drop out of the story once the elder son has returned? The complexities of the film provoke questions we want to see answered. Even though the film presents nothing startlingly new about PTSD, it at least offers no easy answers and is always absorbing to watch.… Full Review »
  3. BryanG.
    8
    Subtle differences in familiar plot lines make the reality of emotion stand out as the crowning execution in this film. It is wonderfully atypical.
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