Under the Tree's reviews
Media reviews
New York Times
Maintaining an unrelentingly gleeful grip on the film?s tone, Mr. Sigurdsson skillfully whips absurdist comedy and chilling tragedy into a froth of surging hostilities. Neither pets nor possessions are spared as his small section of manicured suburbia, soaked in bitter enmity and pearl-gray light, begins to crumble.
El Mundo
'Under the Tree' is a comedy for everyone who has never been in a neighbour's board and a realistic drama for those who has experience with them. Hence its brilliance.
Entertainment Weekly
But as the gap between the script?s two directives widens and farce tips into tragedy, the final act feels less like a twisted triumph than a cheat: By trading in all its intrigue and emotional subtleties for the gotcha moment it?s clearly been waiting for, 'Under the Tree' wins the battle but loses the war.
El País
'Under the Tree' is, to sum up, a film populated with plausible and every-day monsters, in whose development particularly shines the transformation of the face of a character with the discovery of the obvious cruelty of his wife.
Fotogramas
The movie turns a trivial and insignificant anecdote (a tree on the boundary of two houses and families with their tongues sharp and a null capacity of diplomacy) that in other cases ('Lemon Tree' and its metaphor of the Isareli-Palestinian conflict) became an excuse for a message, into just an alibi so that their sharp tongues, the mistake, the apathy and the stupidity of the main characters derives in an all's fair of violence and malice.
El Periódico
The insults and humiliations come after one another: a non buried tension is filmed with an extreme brutality.
Variety
Memorablemente mordaz (...) La comedia negra salvaje se convierte casi de manera imperceptible en una tragedia asombrosa y visceral.
Screen Daily
Unsettlingly perceptive as well as absurdly comedic (...) 'Under the Tree' proves cool in hue, calm in pacing and collected in framing, even as on-screen hostilities heat up.
The Hollywood Reporter
Easy to watch, funny and thoughtful, it should find a European art house launch in Venice Horizons and collect many more festival requests. [...] The cast is excellent, with each actor contributing just the right amount of confusion to the emotional mess.
Los Angeles Times
A blacker than black comedy that is so savage you often don't know whether to shudder or laugh.