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Must Love Dogs
Warner Bros.


5.0

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 36 votes
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MPAA 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.)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Gary David Goldberg Claire Cook (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Gary David Goldberg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 20, 2005 Theatrical: July 29, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	98 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...

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's a frisky romantic comedy with a great title and wonderfully appealing performances.

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.

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

A breath of fresh air amid the superheroes, aliens and bombastic explosions of summer.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

View it as a fat-free but tasty cinematic treat in the middle of the long, hot summer.

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

A thoroughly conventional romantic comedy with all the usual trimmings.

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.

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.

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This movie is never more than a one-liner away from sitcom, yet it goes down like ice cream.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is pleasant, sedate, subdued and sweet, but there is not a moment of suspense in it.

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.

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.

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.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The dialogue and the movie seem as canned as a Must-See TV laugh track.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

This is a movie of fake conflict, fake heart, even fake doggy love.

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.

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.

Empire Emma Cochrane

Less than crowd-pleasing chick flick livened up by John Cusack’s self-penned one-liners.

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.

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.

Washington Post Jen Chaney

This is nothing but a dare-to-be-terrible movie.

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.

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.

Premiere Sara Brady

It's somehow fitting that this purported romantic comedy about dating is, like most dates, clumsy, endless, and absolutely excruciating.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's ostensibly about adults, but there's nothing remotely adult about it.

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.

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.

Must Love Dogs Warner Bros.

Must Love Dogs
Warner Bros.