J. J. Wright’s review published on Letterboxd:
And with this, I've FINALLY seen all of last year's Oscar nominated films. Wish I could say I've saved the best for last, but, not so much.
There's a good film buried in Capernaum. It's lifted immeasurably by the performance of its non-professional lead Zain Al Rafeea, and the scenes that involve him on his own (or with the young child he winds up caring for, for a time), living more or less on the street, are affecting and strong. Less strong, for a variety of reasons, is the frame story involving the court case he brings against his parents for bringing him into the world in the first place... there are a lot of ways to take the message of that, not many of them very good. It's a thorny gimmick on which to hang a movie, and I'm not sure Labaki pulls it off on a script or plot level. It'd be hard NOT to feel empathy for Zain and the misery of his story, but that could have been achieved without what, ultimately, feels like some kind of misguided preaching via the frame story.