Jake Cole’s review published on Letterboxd:
There is order here, not only in the obsessive compositions but in a narrative structure of mirroring symmetry not unlike that of The Deer Hunter. And yet, that arc is subtler here, loosened by the epic scope and refocused elsewhere by its surprising humility. So many moments stick in the mind. Ella stifling a laugh when she sees Nate's mannishly literal idea of wallpaper; her and Jim standing on a lakeshore, arranged right where the sun reflects off the water to backlight them perfectly; the epic ride of the immigrants to war undone before it truly begins by the interlude of a wagon upturning and trapping its riders underwater as the husband tries in vain to save his drowning family. Lines like "It's getting dangerous to be poor in this country" announce the film's themes, yet the depths of Cimino's class commentary, even the basic narrative, are not clear save in retrospect. Fordian ambivalence on a vast scale.