Richard Corliss of Time magazine calls LIFE DURING WARTIME "The Year's Best Indie Film". He also says of Solondz "He doesn't want to judge his characters; he needs to understand them. And because he portrays them with such boldness and acuity — daring the viewer to laugh at them and, a bigger challenge, to find some residue of beauty in the beasts — he is the best argument for why we need indie movies. His films will never be mainstream fare; audiences who wander into the theater may well find them derisive, needlessly shocking, perhaps unforgivable. But I'd call them, and especially Life During Wartime, unforgettable."

See the full review.