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Hottest State, The
THINKFilm


6.8

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 5 votes
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FILM:

Chelsea Walls

MPAA RATING: R for sexual content and language

Starring Mark Webber, Jesse Harris, Laura Linney, Frank Whaley, Lynn Cohen, Greta Gaines, Nick McDonnel, and Alexandra Daddario

Days before his 21st birthday, William (Mark Webber), an actor, meets and quickly falls madly in love with Sara (Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno), a seductive yet elusive singer/songwriter. The film follows William from a Lower East Side tenement to a Mexican hotel room, to a snowbound weekend in Connecticut, and to a sweltering homecoming in the hottest state of all--Texas--in the pursuit of Sara. His stubborn and sweetly innocent quest to find someone who loves him as much as he loves her may not lead to happiness, but surely leads to newfound maturity. (THINKFilm)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Ethan Hawke
DIRECTED BY:	Ethan Hawke
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 4, 2007 Theatrical: August 24, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	117 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...

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Hawke has made this movie his way and the result is a story that is by turns romantic and disquieting. It's well worth the price of admission.

New York Post Linda Stasi

Could be an overwrought mess if it were in less capable hands. But Webber and Moreno are so good, it's hard to believe they're not really deeply and meaningfully in lust.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Hawke’s script is admirably light-handed in showing how the hero’s unreasoning passion is fueled by his parents’ painful divorce, and despite the story’s date-movie aspects, its most penetrating observations come not from the kids but from the young man’s estranged father and mother (Hawke and Laura Linney, both superb).

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's nothing new, but Hawke captures some evocative textures and honest moments.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

At times this indie is as repetitive and self-indulgent as its protagonist, but it captures a bit of the madness of being unrequitedly in love.

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

Hawke quite capably taps into the bittersweet complexities of young, love-struck idiocy.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Patchy lead perfs and mannered helming subtract value from pic's tangible plus points (solid supporting turns, pleasant score).

The New York Times Stephen Holden

At around the halfway point, its characters’ haranguing voices begin to grate on you. People in their early 20s, even pretty people, lose their appeal when they dwell this obsessively on their own inchoate turmoil.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Actor-turned-filmmaker Ethan Hawke's second feature, an adaptation of his own novel about youthful heartbreak, is hobbled by its singularly unappealing lead characters.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Hawke, who is very good as the young man's estranged father, had best stick to what he does best.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

In The Hottest State, Hawke uses fairly standard childhood motivations for his unhappiness and reveals too little real interest in the Sara character.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Personal and heartfelt, it's nevertheless bogged down by a lack of perspective on the material and a pointlessly frilly visual style.

Slate Dana Stevens

A viewing of The Hottest State is likely to conclude with a crosstown sprint of a different kind: As soon as the credits start rolling, you can't wait to get out.

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

Hawke has created a standard-issue, Sundance-friendly indie film that's full of the predictable angst suffered by Manhattan artistic types, but unfortunately the lead characters are both so callow that you finally don't care much about them.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Judging by the far more interesting adults in the film--Braga, a terrific Laura Linney as Webber's mother, and Hawke as his father--the solution for Webber and Moreno is to grow up and not be so full of themselves. In their current state, they make for unpleasant company, and so does the film.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

To quote Dennis Hopper from the film "Search and Destroy": "Just because it happened to you doesn't make it interesting."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

When Laura Linney turns up about an hour into The Hottest State, you can see the movie that might have been.

Chicago Tribune Scott Schueller

This self-important movie can't save itself from being disheartening.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

The problem is the material itself, with its trite observations and shockingly flat writing.

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

Whatever you're imagining -- self-serving self-awareness; unedited hipster mopes; yammering dear-diary script -- The Hottest State, Ethan Hawke's bathetic tale of a good-looking young actor's first heartbreak, is far worse.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dave gave it a9:
I generally don't like young-romance films, but this one blew me awy. Great acting all around. Ditto the direction and even the soundtrack. I think the critics were just too impatient waiting for somebody to get shot.

Derek B. gave it a7:
It's a flawed movie, but a cute one. The dialogue gets cheesy at times, and the characters don't develop as much as you'd like them to, but you do sympathize with them after a while - even if you're not really supposed to. Not nearly as horribly as some critics say, that's for sure...

Chad S. gave it a3:
"Do you speak English?" asks William(Mark Webber) when Sarah(Catalina Sandino Moreno) sits mutely at the bar as she considers whether to follow him home or not. Later in "The Hottest State", Sarah could ask William the same thing as he whines and pleads for the budding singer-songwriter to love him back. On the night they first met, she tells William that he's not very complicated. Well, neither is she. Two words: ice princess. And William, one word sums him up: idiot. For nearly two hours, the ice princess and idiot talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. When they break up, William becomes insufferable in his unwillingness to take a hint and get lost. The dialogue in "The Hottest State" is so banal, you'll never complain about Woody Allen again. In a film, it's more interesting to hear intellectuals rather than airheads speak. Good photography, though. Texas does look like the hottest state.

Tyler S. gave it a7:
The critic's reviews are a little harsh. Fans of Hawke's movies won't be disappointed but people who tend to dislike scripts with self-awareness (for instance, like many of Linklater's films) probably won't enjoy it. The soundtrack is amazing.

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Hottest State, The THINKFilm

Hottest State, The
THINKFilm