Mug (Twarz) [Sub: Eng]

"Mug" works hard to be a fable about inner strength and beauty. But did everyone else have to come off as quite so foolish and ugly?

Mug is a strange, engaging film - well and potently acted and directed, a drama that puts you inside its extended community with a mix of robust realism and a streak of fantasy comedy.

This study in weathering adversity and adjusting to what life hands you makes some worthy points about human and institutional callousness.

Mug is uninspired and forgettable.

Using a lot of black humor, Szumowska makes the pill more digestible because, although localism is very marked at times, the message and spirit of the film are easily extrapolated to any country in Europe. [Full Review in Spanish]

Mug throws his darts in quite linear and obvious directions, but Szumowska continues to refine his incisive gaze with effective styling solutions. [Full Review in Spanish]

The message - that people judge by appearances - is a little too obvious and on the nose to be satisfying. And Szumowska overuses a filter that blurs all but the very centre of the frame...

National disdain has clouded judgement, and so both director and community have let their constructions get out of hand.

Mug juggles with high concepts of spirituality, religion and commerce to create an absurdist fable about the power of the human spirit and the modern bane of materialism

Mug treads a fine balance between freewheeling comic exuberance and the urge to comment on the state of Poland.

A potent slice of sacrilegious daring, which allows a true sense of humanity to bleed into focus.

Following in a fine tradition of 'the grotesque' stretching back into fairy tale, Jacek may face physical deformity ... but he remains a warm and upbeat character, while the moral ugliness of those around him ... is accentuated in relief.