Metacritic reviews

Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili’s Tribeca prize-winner, “Brighton 4th,” is a tragicomedy that sneaks up on you stealthily before flooring you with an emotional sucker punch in the final reel.

The tender screenplay by Boris Frumin captures characters living in the new world in much the same fashion as they did in the old. It also offers a touching showcase for Levan Tediashvili, a non-professional actor and real-life wrestler.

Preferring to maintain his focus on the tender relationship between father and son, as well as the gently amusing camaraderie that exists among groups of males in both countries, Koguashvili challenges conventional notions of masculinity to often delightful effect.

The story, centering around family, culture, and identity, comes from a unique perspective. Some sub-plots go unaddressed, yet Tedaishivili’s excellent performance always brings you back with the worn gaze of a battle-weary wrestler.

Brighton 4th might be slower and lack the dramatic stakes of other films that dive into this type of criminal activity, it’s still a compelling and somewhat tangential portrait of the Eastern European community that exists in Brighton and features a great performance by Tediashvili, in his first film role.

The film unfolds at a pace that is unhurried yet self-assured, submerged in the rhythms that govern its characters’ lives.

Brighton 4th is the kind of ambling, immersive movie that you check out for the chance to visit a different culture and see the world through others’ eyes, but that you remember for its warmth, the connection that binds people who never let themselves be simply resigned to their family obligations.

Levan Koguashvili evocatively captures the unpredictable crackle of tensions and the tacit loyalties between the men; all sweat and beer and maudlin machismo, although the atmosphere of the picture is rather more compelling than its somewhat workmanlike plot.