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Igby Goes Down
EMAILPRINTUnited Artists / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 52 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by: Burr Steers
Directed by: Burr Steers
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 13, 2002
DVD: February 4, 2003
Running Time: 97 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language, sexuality and drug content
Starring Kieran Culkin, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Claire Danes, Ryan Phillippe, Bill Pullman, Amanda Peet, and Jared Harris
Igby Slocumb (Culkin), a rebellious and sarcastic seventeen-year-old boy, is at war with the stifling world of "old money" privilege he was born in to. (MGM/UA)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 17 Again
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Gets weirder and meaner and darker and sadder as it progresses, which is amazing since it simultaneously remains funny and horrifying right up to the end.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Igby Goes Down got a reaction from me: I think it's the movie of the year. I squirmed, I laughed a lot.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
A dead-on sense of how rich kids live and talk today, a sense of the melancholy of a dysfunctional family, and some great dark laughs.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Wickedly funny, jarringly transgressive, obdurately unpigeonholeable and startlingly moving.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Patterson
Culkin, a revelation here, mines every last nuance of the confusion and anger that results. Bursting with grenadelike one-liners and full-bodied performances, particularly from Sarandon (batty) and Goldblum (creepy) -- Igby Goes Down inaugurates a career that should be well worth following closely.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Smart, uncanny, resistant to the short cuts of pop psychology, and shocking in the best since of the word, Steers' debut is a stunner.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Across the board, the performances testify, often hilariously, to the pain these characters feel and inflict but are incapable of expressing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
An inspired example of the story in which the adolescent hero discovers that the world sucks, people are phonies, and sex is a consolation. Because the genre is well established, what makes the movie fresh is smart writing, skewed characters, and the title performance by Kieran Culkin.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Smart and novelistic and spiked with more than a bit of The Catcher in the Rye, Steers' movie is a prickly coming-of-age tale in which everybody -- but especially Culkin -- shines.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
This is a marvelous film, a look at the strange, exasperatingly labyrinthine process of adolescence and the diverse ways people find to deal with it.
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The movie is an actors' paradise, and absolutely no one disappoints.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
This film and Salinger's novel differ greatly in the details of narrative and character. Yet, there's no mistaking the similarity in tone and sensibility and, particularly, in the capacity to split an audience into warring camps fighting on shared ground.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
You'll gasp appalled and laugh outraged and possibly, watching the spectacle of a promising young lad treading desperately in a nasty sea, shed an errant tear.
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although Igby has its share of glitches and tonal inconsistencies, it packs an emotional wallop similar to that of another cultural golden oldie as beloved in its way as "The Catcher in the Rye": "The Graduate."
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Gives the impression of spontaneity while being meticulously planned. Most importantly, Steers and Culkin know that the best way to evoke sympathy is never to beg for it; by the end, their achievement seems hard-won.
Read Full Review >Variety
Young Kieran Culkin holds his own against a stellar ensemble in Igby Goes Down, a family comedy so dark it turns "The Royal Tennebaums" into latter-day Bradys.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Lightweight, although it exhibits enough heft for us to develop an emotional connection with the main character. I have always appreciated a smartly written motion picture, and, whatever flaws Igby Goes Down may possess, it is undeniably that.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Culkin is superb - he makes you forget that Igby is a spoiled brat who actually deserves the beating he gets.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Think of the Slocumbs as distant relatives of "The Royal Tenenbaums," only more dysfunctional and far from attractively "quirky."
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
More sour than sweet, but Steers knows that, even in a cruel, unsentimental world, there is room for forgiveness and hope. Just don't expect a hug.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky
Steers' film will likely polarize the audience, which, if nothing else, gives it rare resonance; at least it makes you feel, where many similar indie efforts make you sleepy.
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Witty and intelligently made. It's also utterly baffling.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Fred Camper
Misses a chance to use the Manhattan setting to add to his protagonist's displacement, instead treating the city as a bland backdrop.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
The film lacks the turbulent social context of the 1950s and '60s that lent resonance to the personal uncertainties of Ibgy's forebears -- Holden Caufield, Ben Braddock, et al. But Culkin has a way with quip-heavy dialogue that transforms what might otherwise been irritatingly, solipsistic posing into a great performance.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Igby has his own prickly charisma and bleak humor; he's a character you'd like very much to embrace. But he's surrounded by insufferable fools in the airless Manhattan universe of a film that's as offputtingly precocious as its preppy hero.
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Hammers home its tragicomic points too heavily for either its humorous or dramatic aspects to gather much emotional steam.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ed Park
Culkin broods and freaks out ably, but Igby's snotty, dysfunction-derived malaise remains off-putting, mostly because his lines aren't half as clever or empathic as Steers would believe.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Writer-director Steers has chosen to overload "Igby" with phony archness and forced black humor, making it not the place to look for satisfying acting.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Its motif is self-pity, Steers displays no particular way with a scene, and, as Igby, Culkin exudes none of the charm or charisma that might keep a more general audience even vaguely interested in his bratty character.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Mean-spirited and not remotely clever, though it strives for archness at every turn.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 52 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Dave M. gave it a10:
Extraordinary cast and performances by all. Cinematography is great of the East Coast cities portrayed. A must see.
Gabor A. gave it an8:
The best dramedy of all time beating America Beauty by inches. The story is dramatic, the acting moving, and the dialogue hilarious. Superb film.
Lolita A. gave it a10:
One of those movies that just makes you feel good when you watch it. Once over your "feel good feeling" you begin to realize what an amazing movie, in fact, you've just seen. Kieran Culkin is, frankly, charming.
Wiliam B. gave it a7:
Having observed this social class from the vantage point of a middle-class kid who got to go to private school, I find Igby accurate and funny. Ryan Phillipe is particularly hilarious as Igby's brother, and it's a funny script all the way through. A dire update of Salinger, with many funny moments. Recommended to preppies, New York division.
Jose R. gave it a10:
Amazingly casted, tremendously acted, superbly directed. From the very first scene of this film, you want to get wring every little drop out of it. Every conversation is bursting with pop culture references; if you're bored it's because you're not listening. Kieran Culkin is a gem, the Marlon Brando of our times.
Ash L. gave it a0:
Blind leading the blind. huge waste of money and time.
Captain Craig gave it a1:
Typical of untalented productions and studio packaged product. How do they get money to make this kindof stuff? Psyco kids in a Psyco world. How needs to see it on the screen?
