Pleasant and picturesque throughout, "Sweetness in the Belly" is most affecting as a story where everyone is an outsider in some capacity.

Sweetness in the Belly has its moments of grace... But for a complicated story set during even more complicated times, Sweetness in the Belly just feels altogether too simple.

This is a well-crafted, Bechdel-passing film that prioritizes an intersectional female friendship, yet Lilly remains nothing but our Trojan horse into the 1980s Ethiopian refugee crisis.

The nonlinear film is evocative and compassionate, yet struggles to modulate its disparate narrative threads.