Metacritic reviews

Though powered by incredible performances and worldbuilding, what truly leads The Assessment to have an exceptional final product is its refreshingly original premise. The script, written by John Donelly, Nell Garfath Cox, and Dave Thomas, takes full advantage of the sci-fi genre to tap into relevant topics such as climate change, parenthood, and elitism.

A compelling genre thriller that manages to build a world that feels both genuinely new and depressingly realistic if human society goes too far down the wrong path.

Opinions may divide about the extended coda that Fortuné gives her story but it is evidence that she is ambitious for something that eludes so many film-makers: an ending. It’s a stylish debut.

Even when The Assessment goes beyond its smaller scale, it has a lot on its mind throughout and Fortuné ably balances the cerebral with the emotional.

And while the inevitable devolution of Mia and Aaryan’s union under the stress of this assessment and their respective truths hidden beneath their ideal of love is dramatic, it’s Virginia who steals the show. Not because she’s an absurdly insane character that Vikander knocks out of the park, but because there’s a reason for her intensity.

At its best, The Assessment smartly taps into and maintains its focus on the near universal anxiety about parenting in a world made increasingly uninhabitable by overconsumption and climate change. But the film loses its way when it widens its scope and tries to incorporate eleventh-hour world-building.

There are things to admire in the visual design and in the way a small group of accomplished actors submit to this quiet horror show, but cold, begrudging admiration is about all the admittedly stylish film is designed to elicit.

The Assessment, directed by Fleur Fortuné, is conceptually sound and looks incredible, but while it’s psychologically involved and provoking, it doesn’t go beyond the surface of its ideas.

Sure, Vikander and Olsen are superb as Mia has to constantly stop herself from wringing Virginia’s neck, but the whole endeavor increasingly feels flat.

The picture has been worked out on a visual level — the immaculately sterile images evoke a future in which life’s pleasures, like having a family, have been wiped clean — but the script never explores those deeper themes.