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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Mutual Appreciation
EMAILPRINTGoodbye Cruel Releasing
Universal acclaim
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 24 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Andrew Bujalski
Directed by: Andrew Bujalski
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 1, 2006
DVD: February 13, 2007
Running Time: 110 minutes, B/W
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Justin Rice, Rachel Clift, Andrew Bujalski, Seung-Min Lee, Pamela Corkey, Kevin Micka, Ralph Tyler, and Peter Pentz
Alan (Rice), a musician whose band has just broken up, shows up in New York to pursue his burgeoning rock and roll career. He starts by searching for a drummer for a show he’s already lined up, and otherwise goes about the mechanics of self-promotion. He finds a champion in Sara (Lee), a radio DJ who sets her sights on a submissive but uninterested Alan -- and finds him a drummer. In his down time, Alan drinks and strategizes with his old friend Lawrence (Bujalski), a grad student, and Lawrence’s girlfriend Ellie (Clift), a journalist. Alan endeavors to keep his shoulder to the wheel, while Ellie finds herself compelled by him. The attraction is mutual, but both parties are reluctant to take a next step. (Goodbye Cruel Releasing)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Funny Ha Ha
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...
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Andrew Bujalski's considerable gifts begin with his deep appreciation of the miserable, hilarious awkwardness of real life.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A marvelous, deceptively simple accomplishment shot on grainy 16mm film and featuring a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors delivering loosely written dialogue.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
Bujalski's writing is so good, and every shot and edit seems exactly right. Hopefully, there will always be a place for a film like this on a theater screen, no matter the whims of the marketplace.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Bujalski's gift for capturing the awkwardness of social relationships and the messy, unkempt details of everyday life is revealing.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
The halting dialogue, full of awkward pauses and restarts, seems improvised in the way that only carefully scripted material can.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Bujalski's brand of stylized dialogue sounds genuinely fly-on-the-wall.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
It's the sort of unassuming discovery that could get lost in a crowd or suffer from too much big love, and while it won't save or change your life, it may make your heart swell. Its aim is modest and true.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
If John Cassavetes had directed a script by Eric Rohmer, the result might have looked and sounded like Mutual Appreciation.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
There's a rawness and immediacy to his (Bujalski's) work that cuts straight to the experience, a starkness that's startling in an age of bloated spectacle.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
If this is the sound of a new generation, then it may be the first generation cautious enough to embrace friendship as mightier than love.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Eric Campos
Authentic and hilarious. This film sparks with a natural comic rhythm.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Gently persistent in its ironies, "Funny Ha Ha" managed to be both charmingly lackadaisical and annoyingly smug; Mutual Appreciation, which Bujalski shot in grainy black-and-white in hipster Brooklyn (and is self-distributing), is even more so.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jim Healy
One of Bujalski's gifts is his ability to give every part, no matter how big or small, a sense of intelligence and life that extends beyond the frame and running time, and in this his work recalls the best of both Mike Leigh and Richard Linklater.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Particularly adept at chronicling the vague existential aimlessness of a segment of postcollege young adults, Bujalski manages to make his subjects seem simultaneously articulate and socially dunderheaded.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The three leads deliver funny, convincing performances in a film that wears both youthful callowness and intellectual sophistication lightly. Mutual Appreciation is the kind of movie whose dialogue mostly hews to the rhythms of "like, you know, whatever" but then occasionally throws in a word such as "puissance." And, like, it totally works.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
As before, Bujalski's preference for nonprofessional actors, his ear for the rhythms of conversation among bright young 20-somethings and his adept use of a roving, hand-held camera (this time shooting in fuzzy black and white) lend the film an invigorating energy.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
This indie rambler was my favorite movie of South by Southwest 05, where it premiered. But before I go any further, let's establish that Mutual Appreciation is not for you if you go to the movies to see things blown up or if you expect such conventional niceties as a three-act structure or lighting effects not achieved by yanking up a window shade.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
What's so fresh about Mutual Appreciation is how acutely it represents the social rituals of today's post-collegiate types.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The indie Mutual Appreciation isn't much more interesting than hanging out with four smart, nice, semi-confused people in their 20s. But that puts it far above the average movie.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
That's a knock on Bujalski -- that his characters exist in a vacuum, with few references to popular culture or politics or much of anything, really. Of course, one artist's vacuum is another's poetic distillation, and there's something about Mutual Appreciation (which is shot in an unassuming black and white) that spoke more directly to my inner slacker than any film since, well, "Funny Ha Ha."
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
The film's mood and style are pitched somewhere between '60s American indie and French New Wave and, as you watch these people, they seem painfully, amusingly on-target. They may irritate you a little, but that's the right response.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Esteban I. gave it a6:
Cringe-worthy and cute even if its superfluous. The main enjoyment I got out of it was Justin Rice's performance which is reminiscent of Henry Fonda in 'The Lady Eve'.
Chad S. gave it an8:
"Mutual Appreciation" never overstays its welcome, not when the writer/director has the uncanny knack of replicating how people really communicate with each other. They talk talk, not movie talk; the seemingly artless banter in "Mutual Appreciation" makes this no budget-film feel revolutionary, and its author, a maverick. These indie rock-informed post-grads have nothing in common with those nihilisitic tweens from Larry Clarke's "Kids", but both films convince you that the actors aren't reciting dialogue from a carefully worded script. Justin Rice, who plays Alan, the struggling artist(a Jonathan Richman-type informed by, perhaps, The Buzzcocks), and Rachel Clift, who plays Ellie(a plain Jane who grows more pulchritudinous before your very eyes with each passing scene) generate effortless good-will and exude more chemistry than any of those million-dollar actors that the studio-execs throw together in some banal romantic comedy. If Ellie followed her heart, she'd be with Alan, and not with his best friend, Lawrence(Andrew Bujalski, the New York-based writer/director who's more like Richard Linklater than Woody Allen), an equally nice guy with better career prospects, and most importantly, a job. Since "Mutual Appreciation" is about living in the moment, we never learn if Alan's music career will pan out, but if his knock-'em-dead, albeit poorly attended gig is any indication, Ellie should join The Bumblebees as a musician(she's already Alan's manager), and be a Claudia Gonson to his Stephin Merritt. Rice rocks with an indefatigable DIY spirit. "Mutual Appreciation" is a two-fisted, one-finger salute to both, corporate rock and Hollywood.
Matt D. gave it a6:
I guess I was kind of underwhelmed by this. I admit I was interested in it primarily because Justin Rice is in it and I really like his band Bishop Allen. So the highlight for me was the performance of "Quarter to Three". The movie is filled with conversations that are important to the people involved but kind of mundane to everyone else (or at least to me). I enjoyed watching it, but it didn't leave much of an impression.
Roger B. gave it a1:
In one scene Ellie pulls down Lawrence's pant so Alan can see the mole on his ass that they are all discussing. When they showed a close up of his ass and Ellies face it look like boy and girl twins, both with warts. The most annoying movie I've ever seen. No redeming qualities.
Philip D. gave it a10:
This is a brilliant film.
Jack J gave it a1:
This movie was terrible. None of the characters are interesting, and the film is basically a bunch of awkward conversations with nervous people. I suppose reviewers are calling this the future of film because it's honest and tries to be realistic. But how is this film daring? There have been many films about twenty-somethings who feel lost and aren't sure where they're going in life, or why they're dating who they're dating, and so on and so forth, but often they're funnier, have wittier dialogue (which would be more realistic anyways if you're trying to capture twenty-something hipsters), and manage to have more highs and lows. This movie left me completely under whelmed. Basically, if I grabbed a camera and filmed my friends conversing and figuring out life, I'd have a much funnier, wittier, and touching movie.
Jay C gave it a3:
As the director said, he prepared scenes, but they kind of let the "actors" decide. For a movie that relies so extensively on dialogue, this one seemed to be mostly uncommunicative. Confused, disconnected and pretty boring. Why would we care about these people's lives?
