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Must Love Dogs

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 36 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by:
Gary David Goldberg
Claire Cook (novel)
Directed by: Gary David Goldberg
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 29, 2005
DVD: December 20, 2005
Running Time: 98 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content
Starring Diane Lane, John Cusack, Elizabeth Perkins, Christopher Plummer, Dermot Mulroney, Stockard Channing, Ali Hillis, and Brad William Henke
As thirty-something divorced pre-school teacher Sarah Nolan (Lane) braves a series of hilariously disastrous mismatches and first dates, she begins to trust her own instincts again and learns that, no matter what, it's never a good idea to give up on love. (Warner Bros.)
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...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's a frisky romantic comedy with a great title and wonderfully appealing performances.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Writer-director Gary David Goldberg's script is full of complex and lively love patter, which Cusack especially rattles off with sometimes breakneck speed.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Reminds me of the golden retriever that lived next door long ago: endearing, consistently sweet-natured, ready for a brisk turn around familiar territory as long as no strenuous intellectual demands are ever made.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
A breath of fresh air amid the superheroes, aliens and bombastic explosions of summer.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
View it as a fat-free but tasty cinematic treat in the middle of the long, hot summer.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
These two generate real, slow-burning rapport, so that you're still pulling for them even during a gratingly preposterous climax.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
A thoroughly conventional romantic comedy with all the usual trimmings.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
To properly appreciate Must Love Dogs, one must first love John Cusack. Thesp's maverick turn steals the show in this otherwise middling romantic comedy, which retools standard meet-cute elements for the Web generation in pleasant but uninspired fashion.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Bland and forgettable - a romantic comedy with affable characters and some funny lines, but where love never really takes flight. It fizzles when it should sizzle.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
While Lane is her typical winning self, the film is mawkish. The more we're cajoled to root for Sarah Nolan, the divorced preschool teacher she plays, the more Must Love Dogs stops resembling a movie and starts feeling like a greeting card.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
This movie is never more than a one-liner away from sitcom, yet it goes down like ice cream.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
The script by sitcom veteran Gary David Goldberg has weaknesses--it soft-pedals bitterness, and the ending is annoyingly pat. On balance, though, this is a funny and smartly paced love story.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
The movie does find fresh ways to tweak the formula, making it more than the sum of its broad strokes.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It offers a handful of funny and touching moments and maintains a level of cuteness. But it's far from original, and its star chemistry doesn't exactly light up the screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie is pleasant, sedate, subdued and sweet, but there is not a moment of suspense in it.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Think you know where this film is going? You do, and the best thing about Must Love Dogs is that it takes only 88 minutes to get there - short enough to enjoy the film's modest, well-worn pleasures, but not so long that you feel your time could have been put to better use elsewhere.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Cusack should have been half the picture, but the screenplay keeps shoving him offstage for no good reason, and it's a mistake. One of many.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) David Gilmour
What's curious about the film, in an anthropological way, is that it's made up of a series of false human moments yet remains entirely predictable.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The dialogue and the movie seem as canned as a Must-See TV laugh track.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly John Patterson
At once over- and under-written, and peppered with tiresome coincidences and misunderstandings, Goldberg’s mechanical, joke-one, joke-two, joke-three approach to ensemble screenwriting soon betrays his TV-sitcom roots.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Short on dramatic energy, Must Love Dogs settles for a cheerful drone.
TV Guide Angel Cohn
The film makes no real impression; it's amiable, occasionally funny and indistinguishable from dozens of other romantic comedies just like it.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Individually, the actors are endearing. But together in this charmless Gary David Goldberg sitcomedy, inspired by the Claire Cook novel, they are as oddly paired as chalk and cheese.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Virtually every person in the story is fabulously cute, picturesquely forlorn, adorably ditzy, or winsomely philosophical. In short, there's plenty of smooth storytelling but not a hint of reality here.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
This is a movie of fake conflict, fake heart, even fake doggy love.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Forces them (the cast) to reenact the entire unabridged Encyclopedia of Treasured Romantic Comedy Clichés and Chestnuts, Revised Second Edition.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Laura Sinagra
With a character this dull--so dull that we're told over and over how smart and special she is--the resulting glut of date-ad losers seems like just deserts.
Read Full Review >Empire Emma Cochrane
Less than crowd-pleasing chick flick livened up by John Cusack’s self-penned one-liners.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Did Lane and John Cusack really have to put themselves through this? Here are two first-rate actors in the embarrassing situation of playing blithering misfits in a lame comedy of errors.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
The movie wastes the talents of its two leads by refusing to take any risks with the material, marching in lockstep to every genre cliché.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Proving once again that skillful performances can't create something out of almost nothing - the best they can do is make it palatable.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Here's a hint to tracking down an intelligent, discriminating significant other: stand outside the entrance to a theater showing Must Love Dogs. Once the film begins, look for the first person to walk out.
Read Full Review >Premiere Sara Brady
It's somehow fitting that this purported romantic comedy about dating is, like most dates, clumsy, endless, and absolutely excruciating.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
It's ostensibly about adults, but there's nothing remotely adult about it.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
No film that requires a woman to jump in water and dogpaddle toward a man has the "sisterhood's" best interests at heart.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 36 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
N W gave it a10:
I laughed the entire time. Great chemistry and John Cusack is his usual rumpled, hilarious self.
Melody T. gave it a4:
I would compare this movie to the one with Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock.... No chemistry. The roles they each played wasnt really suited for them. But i liked the comedy tidbits.
Barbara M. gave it an8:
It was great. Totally enjoyable. Laughed all the way through it. Maybe it is a chic flic but even my husband loved it.
Tony B. gave it a5:
Totally unnecessary and inconsequential, Must Love Dogs is pleasant enough to be palatable. The cast deserves much better material.
Elsa gave it a3:
Bland and flat. The characters have no chemistry. It's filled with tired romantic comedy chestnuts, like the family that suddenly bursts into a choreographed song at the dinner table. The dog angle was barely used and felt tacked on. It's like a computer created a bad Nora Ephron cloned movie, and this was the result.
Chris S. gave it a1:
Must love Crap.
joseph m. gave it an8:
It was GREAT i could see it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.
