Bones of Crows (2023)

Bones of Crows is special because it refuses to reduce Indigenous history to a footnote or a tragedy-porn headline; it gives it the sweep of an epic and the intimacy of a lived-in family memory, carried by Grace Dove’s quietly commanding performance. Marie Clements directs with a dignified, clear-eyed tenderness that finds moments of beauty without sanding down the horror, moving across a century in a way that feels cumulative, like a drumbeat of survival and resistance. The film’s tone is urgent and sorrowful but never defeatist, and its WWII code-talker thread adds a bracing, unexpected dimension to a story about language, identity, and endurance. It’s a heavy watch—there’s abuse, racism, and intense material—but if you’re willing to sit with difficult truths, it rewards you with something rare: a powerful, necessary film that feels like both witness and reckoning.

Bones of Crows is clearly trying to be an epic, generational reckoning with the residential school system and its lasting damage, while also spotlighting a lesser-known WWII story through Aline’s work as a Cree code talker. The problem is that it crams so many enormous events into one film that the pacing can feel rushed and the focus wobbles, turning what should be a cohesive emotional journey into something more like a series of hard-hitting chapters. It’s also unapologetically heavy, with traumatic material that can feel blunt rather than subtly built, so if you’re looking for a more measured, character-first historical drama, this may test your patience. That said, Grace Dove brings real gravity, and when the film slows down to sit with Aline and her family, it lands with genuine power—just don’t expect a tidy, streamlined narrative.