Ashes in the Snow

It's a sometimes hard-hitting, always heartfelt film - and star Bel Powley is an actor with an umami-style knack for adding depth to any film she's in.

It is relentlessly bleak, but within that tonal bleakness there is some really striking imagery.

Filmmakers never seem to run out of footnotes to history during World War II. This one is better served in the pages of a novel. It doesn't work on film.

The script and direction ... [are] dealing with actual historical atrocities and tragedies, and distilling them into another resilience-of-the-human-spirit bromide.

Markevicius and Jones find meaning in the small moments of humanity within the horrors of war - those times when the oppressed and even the oppressors get a chance, just for a little while, to be people.

Sometimes only a fine line separates tragic sweep from a movie that never comes to life as anything other than actors dressed in costumes, straining to inhabit an alien chapter of history.

Without those redemptive highs or soul-destroying lows to stir the emotions, the overall effect can be a bit numbing, making this a rather forgettable tribute to the countless victims of Soviet oppression.

Its ultimately confused about what it wants to be and who its about, likely leaning too faithfully on its literary inspiration text. But it is an important story to tell, and will hopefully attract attention from a teenage audience.

Brings the horror and suffering to life.

... can't decide whether it wants to be a character study about a young artist or a more comprehensive examination of wartime genocide. It's not especially convincing either way.