Undine
IFC Films | Release Date: June 4, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfJul 14, 2021
Undine’s hauntingly aching romance is enchanting, as thick as the feeling of inhaling water into your lungs. There’s a drowning sensation to Petzold’s myth-building in Undine that’s totally engrossing, once again proving he is one of the world’s most exquisite love story composers. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 14, 2021
This is classic Petzold territory, where you can dwell in a place, or a relationship, without ever quite belonging there. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJun 9, 2021
The movie considers what it means to move on, to reconcile with the past while creating a new future. For both a city and a person. And, perhaps, a sea nymph. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJun 4, 2021
It feels like a fist that won’t close, its elements never intentionally coming together. Read full review
85
TheWrapDave WhiteJun 4, 2021
Undine allows for the magical while keeping its eyes firmly on the painfully real, making a valiant, full-hearted attempt to break the bonds of history. Read full review
87
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaJun 4, 2021
As in all of Petzold’s films, Undine builds a world of liminal spaces—of lives in transition, always moving—of his characters shifting between realities, never quite sure where one ends and another begins. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJun 4, 2021
Petzold keeps his mystery afloat (sorry) thanks to his impeccable craft even if this is a tale that sometimes feels like it needed a more magical and less direct approach. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Anna SwansonJun 4, 2021
Regardless of whether Undine is working at a level of allegory or actual fantasy, it is an expansively rich film. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 3, 2021
Undine isn’t a conventional romance, or a readily accessible one, but open yourself to this special film and you’re liable to be hooked. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyJun 3, 2021
One can see clear linkages between Undine to the nightmare weirdness of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, though it’s as if this similar story were drained of its passionate momentum and rendered abstract. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 3, 2021
Petzold is a gifted filmmaker pulled in opposite directions by politics and melodrama, and when they’re in perfect tension, as in Barbara (2012) and Phoenix (2014), a masterpiece can result. Undine, by contrast, is the slightest bit waterlogged. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJun 3, 2021
Undine is a poker-faced fairy tale, a fantasy wrought by a committed cinematic realist. It’s an example of how a filmmaker can take an outlandish central idea and play it beautifully straight. Read full review
90
The New York TimesGlenn KennyJun 3, 2021
Undine is ultimately more enigmatic than most of Petzold’s work. It is also, like its title character, eerily beautiful. While it could well serve as a high-end date movie, it’s also something more. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 2, 2021
The obvious thing to expect here is that writer-director Christian Petzold is using the Undine”myth as a metaphor. But no, he’s doing the actual myth. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJun 2, 2021
What’s atypically clumsy here is Petzold’s effort to synthesize big ideas: Not only is the architectural metaphor overstated and the mythological element frustratingly vague, but the two have nothing much to do with each other, making Undine play like a bidding war between high concepts—one of them academic, the other genre-inflected. Read full review
60
Film ThreatHunter LanierJun 1, 2021
The mundane is only as mundane as you make it, and the supernatural can be painfully mundane. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 28, 2021
Petzold loves his romantic bargains, his meditations on longing, obsession and deceit, and he unfurls all of that seductive cloth of gold in Undine. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 20, 2021
Petzold emphasizes the dreamy nature of the story, which can be nightmarish if you fear drowning in the dark. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansApr 5, 2021
There’s just enough magic and mystery to tease out a supernatural reading of the film, though Petzold encourages viewers to find pleasure in puzzling out his femme fatale for themselves. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyApr 2, 2021
An intriguing romance that plays pleasing games with the viewer until the final ambiguous scene. Read full review
60
CineVueMatthew AndersonMar 30, 2021
Its woozy oddity does linger and the process of falling in and out of love may well feel like drowning. But as we come up for air in closing it must be said that the best is surely yet to come from this excellent leading pair and gifted director after this latest underwater outing. Read full review
67
The Film StageMatt CipollaNov 7, 2020
It’s dissonant, often hypnotic filmmaking. It’s also rote for stretches, with Petzold’s narrative approach surprisingly straightforward enough to make it just decent overall. Read full review
80
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiNov 4, 2020
Its disquieting moments of magical realism paired with the all-consuming romance shared between Undine and Christoph — which feels as grand and tragic as the best cinematic love stories — add some warmth to Undine‘s chilly, cosmic exterior. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 6, 2020
For all the minor creepiness Undine pulls from its inspiration (including some striking underwater shots), it also inherits a certain simplicity of plotting and one-note characterization. Yet I still wouldn’t hesitate for a second to recommend the film, because it’s been made with the superb economy of pacing, shot selection, and editing that’s become a Petzold specialty, nay a trademark. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMar 1, 2020
The film questions the fixed nature of human behavior in a world whose borders are constantly shifting. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJack KingFeb 28, 2020
Petzold’s unsettling film is awash with wonderful ambiguities and strives to challenge both its audience and filmmaking conventions. They’re incomparable and largely succeed through their independent nuances. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallFeb 28, 2020
Petzold’s lean, crisply-shot tale is a deft shape-changer, switching mood and register, interlacing romance with suspense and sudden jabs of humour. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 28, 2020
There’s a stylistic and narrative elegance to Petzold’s approach, with its clean lensing and repeated use of a single piece of music (the rolling piano Adagio from Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, BWV 974), that suggests restraint, where a queer filmmaker might have propelled things into camp territory. In a way, it’s a shame that Undine stops short, since the material feels thin, and the statement as murky as the lake to which the camera ultimately returns. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorFeb 28, 2020
In taking a centuries-old piece of mythology as its source material, Undine ultimately forgoes the inventiveness and sensuality of its first half by slipping into relatively bland predictability. And for a filmmaker who thrives on disregarding narrative conventions, it feels a fatal error. “Relatively” is the key here. This is still Petzold after all, if not peak Petzold. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 28, 2020
It is possible to come away from the film less than convinced, but very impressed by the sheer force of Petzold’s film-making talent (recently so stunning in his drama Transit) but which has been here deployed for something which is a bit flimsy and silly. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijFeb 28, 2020
Beer and Rogowski are so good, and have such amazing chemistry, that it’s hard to look away or not root for them to be together. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 28, 2020
Petzold remains a master of capturing frantic characters doomed by dark obsessions, and while Undine is certainly a minor work, it still shows evidence of a master’s hand. Read full review
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