Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I will not tell you the plot as others have already done that with too much detail. I will offer my review of the movie and answer some of the criticisms of other reviewers. It is a wonderfully fresh and well done movie. The close ups of the young daughter's eyes searching for unknowable answers or the father's futile and desperate hand curling around his scalp as if to ward off the world are incredibly touching. Dialogue is sparse because the camera and actors make it unnecessary. It is so good to see a movie use its art not just to tell a story and titillate but to move you...make you think and probe the human condition. How the director achieved all of this with such grace and beauty is remarkable. Another reviewer has too many questions to enjoy the movie: what put the father into this condition, where does the money come from, and many more. As someone who can handle himself fairly well in the outdoors and who is also a Vet, I asked myself some of those same questions as I watched the movie and found that not only did they not matter, but they added to the truth of the situation. It does not matter HOW the father got to this point, like so many others whose stories we don't know, he's there. The story is not about his life, it is of how the daughter continues hers. Her struggle with the fact that she cannot help her dad and she can no longer share his life; learning that loving helplessly, is still love. There are too many movies of people in war already, this one is about its human consequences. I've known communities like those shown in the movie, some not as benign. They exist; these people DO exist. The movie offers no answers, only gentle understanding and compassion. Perhaps those are the same qualities the daughter ends up with, as well.