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Gerry
ThinkFilm Inc.


7.1

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for language

Starring Casey Affleck, and Matt Damon

Two friends, both named Gerry, get lost while hiking in the desert.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Casey Affleck Matt Damon Gus Van Sant
DIRECTED BY:	Gus Van Sant
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 11, 2003 Video: November 11, 2003 Theatrical: February 14, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	103 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Take a chance on Gerry. It's only a movie, and you'll get out alive no matter what happens on the screen. You might even find you've had a rare adventure.

100

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Conceptually bold and rapturously beautiful Gerry, a minimalist landscape film that's unlike anything on the American independent scene.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is on some level a stunt, but it has the fervent, sun-dazed pull of an authentic experience unfolding in real time, with glints of drama, comedy, and terror mixed into the almost-but-not-quite tedium.

Austin Chronicle Staff (Not credited)

Like the man to whom this film is dedicated, Ken Kesey, Gerry just wants to go "further."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Watching Gus Van Sant's Gerry is the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. I mean that as high praise.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Casual moviegoers may enjoy it, too, if they follow a simple rule: Stop looking for the way out and let yourself get lost.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

About as non-narrative a film as you're likely to see in commercial theaters. This makes it a curiosity and, less charitably, something of a gimmick, but mostly it makes it a challenge.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

With all its quirks, Gerry seeps into your pores like the wind-whipped sand that stings the faces of these disoriented hikers.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Somewhere between profound and ludicrous, kind of like a cross between "Waiting for Godot" and "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is so gloriously bloody-minded, so perverse in its obstinacy, that it rises to a kind of mad purity. The longer the movie ran, the less I liked it and the more I admired it.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

For those with the patience to latch onto Van Sant's slow, methodical groove. It's worth trying.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The result is like a "Waiting for Godot" for the video-game generation.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's certainly a provocation, with a few funny moments, and for my money it's less phony and offensive than "Finding Forrester."

Slate David Edelstein

In some strange way, I admire the enterprise. Like his Gerrys, Van Sant doesn't seem to know where he's going to wind up when he embarks on these journeys. The ether that seeps into his head might be the price we have to pay for his keeping his mind so open.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

There's elegance and grace here, fostering an opportunity to reflect upon why men get so dutiful about being down. It's worth the hike.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A gorgeously shot endurance test that is impossible to get through on anything less than a full night's sleep and a double shot of espresso.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A wee Boy Scout would have done far better in the wilds. It’s tough to think "Waiting for Godot" when what you’re watching is closer to "Dumb & Dumber."

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Gerry isn't much of anything, and doesn't claim to be. It's a movie stripped of its movieness.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

If it were a landscape painting, Gerry would deserve a place in the National Gallery. But as a movie...deserves its own wing in The Old Curiosity Shop.

LA Weekly John Powers

Van Sant ultimately reveals so little about this odd couple that we frankly don't give a damn what happens to them. Nor, apparently, does he.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Long takes do not a masterpiece make, and the suspicion that the whole thing is a lark is only bolstered by Damon and Affleck's inability to contain their giggles.

Film Threat Merle Bertrand

For the most part, Gerry is a lot of self-indulgent baloney.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Exercise in existential tedium that it is, Gerry isn't without devotees.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Gerry moves slowly and deliberately, like a torture technique, leaving us feeling as dry and dusty and lost as its two characters.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

In the end, Gerry is beyond the simple question of pleasure. Seeing it may be no fun at all, but then discomfort is part of the price one pays in learning.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Defiantly uncommunicative picture.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Gerry is all manner without any trace of depth.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The desert is clean in Gerry, but it's also empty.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Strands Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (both named Gerry) in a desert with little to say and do except lose themselves in an existential wasteland of doomed beauty.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The most screamingly obvious reaction to Gerry is: what a load of pseudo-arty you-know-what.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

karen s. gave it a7:
Thank god I watched it on DVD (not at the movies) because I gave up at 11:30pm after 20 minutes and decided it was too slow for the sleep deprived. The next morning, once it hit around 50minutes in, the slow beginning was able to be appreciated as purposeful timing and not as dragging out a story with little plot. I think the director did a great job of suspense and interest for the patient viewer with a simple script.

Eric M gave it a0:
The worst movie I have ever seen. (period)

Mike B. gave it an 8:
It was plain great. awesome shoot the sh.t dialogue. visually stunning to risk sounding trite. Ebert was right. get lost in it and you'll get its beauty. check out the walking heads shot.

A Mulroneycakes With No Name gave it a 7:
Yeah. Well. Okay, then. Here's Matt Damon and t'other Affleck walking. A lot. For a long time. The end. It's beyond criticism, really: it's the kind of film that knows what it wants to do and how and for how long it wants to do it, and if you get bored, it's your problem. Someone in Britain called it "unforgivable" - which, short of something like "f**cky doodly dum dum dum" is just about the worst thing you can say in reaction to it. It's not made for you, but for itself. And it doesn't have to apologise for what it is. And if you think it does, if that is your attitude, you don't deserve cinema. Really. "Gerry" is what it is, and what it is needs no excuses. Face it: knowing in advance what it entails, either you want to watch it or you don't. And if you don't, and yet end up seeing it anyway, don't come crying to me when you don't like it, because it in't my fault. So there.

Chad S. gave it a 7:
"Gerry" is the ideal movie for rude parents to allow their shrieking baby to wail away. It'll keep a segment of the audience, the segment that can't believe what they walked into, from slipping into a state of rem. Me, however, I've seen "Werckmeister Harmonies". I knew what to expect; long takes of two men walking...in silence, but unlike the Bela Tarr film, instead of metaphor(a fossilized whale that signifies, heaven knows what), we get Matt Damon trying to coax Casey Affleck from a rock. Really, this movie should be insufferable, but it's not. "Gerry" is like a John Ford film on codeine. Gus Van Sant makes good use of his locations. He also pays homage to Hou Hsiao-hsien(I think) at the beginning when the two adventure-seekers occupy their car towards imminent doom. This protracted scene of mere driving recalls "Goodbye, South Goodbye". Even if Bela Tarr and Hsiao-hsien means nothing to you, take note that Matt Damon and an Affleck are there to hold your hand through this sometimes boring, but audacious stunt. I mean, film.

Michael S. gave it an 8:
Not as powerful as the Bela Tarr films which inspired it, but sublime nonetheless. Once the awkward improvised dialogue gives way to desperate wandering and the ravages of time, the film hits its stride and becomes a thing of beauty. Not perfect, but one hell of a comeback.

Gerry ThinkFilm Inc.

Gerry
ThinkFilm Inc.