[10] The New York Times's Devika Girish said the film "trembles with sound, color and feeling, deriving much of its power from an excellent ensemble cast".

[11] Stuff reviewer James Croot praised the film for its "compelling narrative, evocative sense of space and place and terrific performances", awarding it four and half stars.

He credited the main cast members with bringing the three protagonists Mata, Makareta and Missy to life, saying Rachel House, Tanea Heke and Ana Scotney particularly impressed " while bright futures await the likes of Mihi Te Rauhi Daniels, Keyahne Patrick Williams and Te Raukura Gray, based on this evidence".

Croot praised the directors Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace-Smith for their immersive style of filming, which in his view brought the viewer into the world of the story.

He also gave a favourable appraisal of Gardiner, Grace-Smith and casting director Tinary's decision to have three sets of actors playing the main protagonists at different stages of their life.

[12] For Australian Book Review, critic Tahney Fosdike praised directorial interest in the intergenerational care of Indigenous women, compared to other trans-Tasman recent releases High Ground (2021) and Nightingale (2018) which gave more stage time to violent white antagonists straining First Nations family bonds.

Simon also praised editor Angela Boyd's non-linear storytelling of the three main protagonists' lives over a period of fifty years from the late 1940s to the 1990s.

She also likened Cousins to other films such as the Australian Rabbit-Proof Fence and Swedish Sámi Blood, which raised awareness of the hurt suffered by indigenous "stolen generations", who were uprooted from their families.