“Leaf paints Gia’s interior life delicately. In the tradition of other films dealing with the livelihoods of Black women, Leaf adds surreal layers to her narrative. Much like Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, Mati Diop’s Atlantics and fellow Sundance entrant Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Leaf’s movie connects her protagonist’s inner world to the natural world and its ghostly atmosphere [with costumes designed by Natasha Hester]. Gia’s anxieties about the life she can provide for her soon-to-be newborn, her struggles with this pregnancy, and her fears about never getting her kids back are portrayed in stirring interludes of the young woman walking naked through a foggy California forest or watching her umbilical cord shrivel and turn into a branch.”

Read the full review here.