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Vodka Lemon
Metascore
69 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
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  1. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    90
    Saleem, a Paris-based Kurd, displays the visual confidence and subtle screwball rhythms of a master, exploiting offscreen space, deadpan compositions, and deft visual backbeats, as well as attaining a breathtaking fidelity to real light and landscape.
  2. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    88
    Iraqi-Kurdish director-writer Hiner Saleem is in no hurry to tell the story, and viewers drawn in by the warm-hearted tale and charmingly eccentric characters will be in no hurry for the closing credits.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    80
    The thicket of relationships that the director, Hiner Saleem, has created and weaves his cast and camera through is so invitingly hotblooded and crowded with hilariously melodramatic incident that the snowbanks are not nearly as forbidding as they initially seem.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: David Stratton
    80
    A little gem that takes a potentially grim subject and mines it for maximum humor and insight.
  5. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Marta Barber
    75
    A fresh breath of air, warmer than the icy village in which it takes place. You'll leave the theater with a wink and a smile.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Curiel
    75
    Director Hiner Saleem has created a magical movie that veers, even within scenes, from love story to tragedy to comic relief.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    The situation in these former republics may indeed be dire, but it's a breeding ground for exciting cinema.
  8. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    70
    A dark-humored film about devastation, which makes Vodka Lemon's final rush into comedy in the truest sense all the more refreshing. Even in the wasteland, there might be humor other than the gallows kind.
  9. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    70
    An appealingly wry little film that is as appetizing as its title.
  10. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    70
    A thematically bleak yet subtly comic film.
  11. The New Republic
    Reviewed by: Stanley Kauffmann
    70
    As the picture winds on, the feeling grows that Saleem, who clearly knows these people, wants to show that their mode of life in this stark setting has, in a gentle way, a touch of the ridiculous.
  12. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Robert Dominguez
    63
    Saleem makes clever use of imagery, with the beautiful, snow-filled vistas representing his characters' personal and social isolation. But "Vodka" moves about as fast as the distant ice caps melt.
  13. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    This is frostbitten Fellini -- a film that finds fresh beauty and contentment in the wake of centuries of conquering armies. The great joke of Vodka Lemon is that the conquerors missed what was there all along.
  14. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Diverting but minor.
  15. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Phil Hall
    50
    The film's leisurely pacing is often too slow for its own good, and many scenes meander endlessly with no true payoff.
  16. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: David Chute
    50
    Exceedingly dry and precise and slow-paced comedy.
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