WateringCanBro’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Fine. It just doesn't scare me anymore. The annihilation of the Ego. The death of the body." (Julia, on the possibility of drowning)
Kate Winslet is a powerhouse performer. This movie is no exception. (Also, by the way, as Seth MacFarlane (in)famously pointed out, she always shows her boobs, and this movie is no exception.) But I can't really care for her character here (except in one instance probably) somehow. I don't think that was intentional. I believe I do get what Kate's character, Julia, is about - of course, as Kate is great at her craft - but somehow I can't care. After half the movie, I started to really care for the two little girls (Bella Rizza, Carrie Mullan) though, and also a bit for the male Moroccan acquaintance of the three British females, Bilal (Saïd Taghmaoui), and this saved the movie for me in the second half, after I really couldn't get involved in the first half. All the main performances are fine.
On the other hand, during the first half, I didn't really always understand and follow where they were going and why, but didn't really mind. I just willfully went along quietly, like a drifter. In the second half, I could follow where they were going, but didn't like it. The mansion and the orphanage felt to me like something out of "Gulliver's Travels", or reminded me of the plantation scene in "Apocalypse Now Redux", the longer 2001 cut of "Apocalypse Now". That was very strange, and I don't think it was the intention. It didn't work well. Not for me. I sometimes like the surreal feel, but it didn't belong here. Or maybe it did, because this is was Morocco is to Westerners, but then it's just not my movie - and this will most likely not only be true for me - or it wasn't executed well.