Metacritic reviews

This clear-eyed ethical drama is propelled by a performance of stunning psychological insight and raw feeling from Jasmine Batchelor. But the film is rendered even more affecting by the careful consideration it gives to the impact of her character's fluctuating decision-making, both on the people directly involved and those on the fringes.

There are many layers of complex, sensitive, and controversial subjects in The Surrogate, but writer/director Jeremy Hersh never lets it get preachy.

As Jess, Jasmine Batchelor (the film marks her first starring role in a film, the actress also produced it) turns in one of the year’s best performances, profound work that twists an already propulsive concept into a riveting character study.

That writer-director Jeremy Hersh’s debut feature is a screen original surprises, not because it’s “stagy” (though he has written plays), but because its engagingly argumentative virtues aren’t typical for movies anymore, if they ever were.

What’s deeply satisfying about this knotty drama is the even-handed approach.

No one is a bad guy here, while all of them are also flawed, and the movie keeps the viewer wondering right up to the end what Jess will finally decide.

Imperfections cannot steal away the ambitious underpinnings of Hersh’s intentions for “The Surrogate,” a down-to-earth analysis of the ever-precarious, self-serving human condition; an examination that speaks volumes despite its reserved demeanor.

The tone ranges from testy to distraught, but always “adult” in the insistence on talking this out.

The result can be frustratingly militant in its desire to show all angles of its central conflict (and how it sparks others), but the questions it makes us ask ourselves are worth it.

The Surrogate feels like the vexed progeny of an elevator pitch and an ethics advice column.