Romulus, My Father: Critic Reviews

The darkness of the story is counterbalanced by some of the most radiantly beautiful cinematography I've seen in a long time.

Helming bow by Oz thesp Richard Roxburgh predictably leaves actors plenty of room, but the literary tone and episodic structure rob the pic of dramatic momentum.

For all that it's well made and expertly acted, the film keeps its audience at arm's length, letting viewers observe without offering an emotional portal of entrance.

For all its sad moments, Romulus, My Father is a love story between father and son kept aloft by unalloyed admiration.

Builds up an emotional head of steam that draws audiences towards it.

The picture has a tranquil, gentle nature about it that's almost soothing, while offering examples of familial terror Roxburgh processes superbly...there's much to admire.

It's not clear what we're supposed to take away from the film.

Gaita clearly had a rough childhood, but while the tragedies of his young life pile up on screen the drama remains frustratingly inert.

Romulus, My Father is a stacked deck determined to make you feel bad, but it rarely makes you feel anything else.

A beautiful mediation on the struggle of immigrants in Australia and the power of the father-son bond.

It's fitting perhaps that a film based on Rai Gaita's memoirs should play rather like a string of memories; we don't remember the past in a linear story but as patches, chapters, moments, sometimes merely fractions of their entirety.