First They Killed My Father

Jolie the woke celebrity and Jolie the artist seem caught at a crossroads with this film, juggling instincts that put her inner Terrence Malick and Ken Burns at odds with one another.

The best work Jolie's done yet. Still, every time Loung's captors holler, "You must have a revolutionary spirit!", I wondered if Jolie ever feels the urge to make truly rebellious art.

Though this story couldn't mean more to Jolie, she hasn't been able to make it mean as much to us.

This is an accomplished and moving and solid drama from a director who seems on the verge of giving us a great movie sometime soon.

Jolie draws restrained, naturalistic performances from her all-Cambodian cast, particularly young Sareum Srey Moch.

Amid all the important facts, I longed for something unnecessary from the filmmaker, some expressive flourish whose sole purpose isn't just to convey information.

An alternately moving and protracted depiction of the Cambodian genocide from Angelina Jolie.

like a female counterpart, from both a filmmaking aesthetic and protagonist POV, to the streaming platform's 2015 release "Beasts of No Nation."

One of the strengths of First They Killed My Father is its matter of fact quality. Only very late on does Jolie indulge in the kind of melodramatic flourishes you'd expect in a Hollywood movie on the same subject.

[First They Killed My Father] is a very beautiful film of horrific things happening in a garden of earthly delights.

Jolie, outdoing her previous directorial efforts, captures Cambodia's wartime horror in beautiful, haunting visuals.

As director, Angelina Jolie brings to life all the horrors of revolution and war, told through the point of view of a five-year-old Cambodian who later wrote a memoir of the tragic events she witnessed during the Pol Pot regime.