Marooned in Iraq
Metascore
86 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    A mix of war film, road movie, and romantic comedy-drama, this peripatetic yarn is less resonant than Ghobadi's beautiful "A Time for Drunken Horses," but it has enough energy to keep your eyes popping and your toes tapping.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Curiel
    100
    Ghobadi infuses his movie with a humor that can almost be called Seinfeldian, and it's this mix of laughter with tears that gives Marooned in Iraq its big impact.
  3. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    100
    You'll have to seek it out in its limited release, but no current movie is more worth the effort.
  4. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    91
    Nothing I've read about Iraq or seen on TV in the past few weeks has felt nearly as real and intimate as this commanding fiction.
  5. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Henry Sheehan
    90
    Occurring as it does amid a surge of tragedy and bitterness, its comic effect is powerfully mitigated.
  6. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    90
    This lusty, heartfelt movie has a near Brueghelian visual energy and a humanist passion as contagious as its music.
  7. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dave Kehr
    90
    If Mr. Ghobadi's dominant theme is the devastation of the Kurds, his subdominant tone is one of strength, resistance and fertility.
  8. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    90
    Mostly, though, it's a film about that hollow feeling that hits you when the tears have all dried up and your face hurts way too much to even crack a smile.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Janice Page
    88
    As full of joy as pain, it's a perspective we need to see more often.
  10. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    80
    On a miniscule budget, Ghobadi conveys the terror of war, while the beautifully edited sequence in which Iranian villagers make bricks resembles nothing so much as a choreographed dance number.
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    75
    It's part grim Beckett-like drama, part joyous picaresque, and all quite mesmerizing.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    Eventually turns somber, with stark depiction of mass graves and suffering refugees. The final scene will break your heart.
  13. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    70
    Ends with horrific revelations that are made all the more powerful by the lightness that precedes them. Simultaneously sad and hopeful, Ghobadi suggests the resiliency of a culture in which war is part of the fabric of everyday life.
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    70
    Even though the film's tone grows ever more elegiac, it stubbornly remains a celebration of the Kurdish capacity to endure.

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