The Surrogate (2021)

"There are no movie-of-the-week histrionics here, and zero moralizing... just perceptive, thoroughly absorbing, granular adult drama based on difficult questions to which there are no right or wrong answers, let alone easy ones."

"Played by anyone else, Jess might read as cloying, even intrusive, but Batchelor finds a well of empathy in Jess."

"As it stands, the whole enterprise feels like something the classic-Hollywood problem-filmmaker Stanley Kramer might have come up with, if he were a sadist."

"Its characters may illuminate a number of thorny issues, but they never exist just to illustrate them."

"Hersh has a good ear for the way people talk about sensitive and difficult issues."

"A superb central performance from Batchelor guides the audience through a film which navigates an ethical and emotional minefield, and concludes that there are no easy answers."

"Writer-director Jeremy Hersh, making his feature debut, excels at unpicking how the threads of each character's moral position are tangled up with other issues, such as class, gender... that have real material effects on how they see the dilemma."

"It's a brilliantly written and deftly performed morality play disguised as social satire. By the end the cracks are chasms, the arguments forensically examined, and the decision no easier to make."