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Prime
Universal Pictures


6.3

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 41 votes
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FILM:

Boiler Room

MPAA RATING: PG-13 on appeal for sexual content including dialogue, and for language

Starring Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep, Bryan Greenberg, Jon Abrahams, Adriana Biasi, David Younger, Palmer Brown, and Zak Orth

A witty romantic comedy about the trials and tribulations of two mismatched lovers: a 37-year-old photography producer (Thurman) reeling from a recent divorce and a 23-year-old painter (Greenberg) recently out of college. (Universal Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Ben Younger
DIRECTED BY:	Ben Younger
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 7, 2006 Video: March 7, 2006 Theatrical: October 28, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	106 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...

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A prime example of a solid romantic comedy.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this light romantic comedy, but it helps.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Younger knows it's fun to watch Rafi and David cross lines of age, culture and religion. He also knows it's painful. That's what makes his movie hilarious and heartfelt.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There are some one-liners that zing not only with humor but truth. On the whole I was satisfied.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Prime serves as yet another showcase for Streep; to prove how expertly she plays a Jewish mother with a Ph.D. in psychology, just imagine Barbra Streisand in the role -- you'd have a farce only a step above slapstick. With Streep, you get a smartly observant comedy that never overplays its hand.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Yes, Younger has made an update of the ''shiksa who changed my life" story in ''Annie Hall." But Prime is missing the psychological acuity and scabrous cultural wit of Woody Allen at his best. These lovers meet standing in line to see Antonioni's ''Blow-Up" and never mention the movie.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Prime may have its unlikely moments, but overall its heart is winningly untraditional and in exactly the right place.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This may sound like Woody Allen - in fact, it often feels like Woody Allen (minus the expected helpings of angst) - but it's not. Prime is from writer/director Ben Younger and, while it's not up to the level of Allen's great romantic comedies ("Annie Hall," "Manhattan"), it's better than anything the acclaimed New York auteur has brought to the screen in recent years.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The real revelation here is Streep, who spends every moment comically negotiating her conflicted impulses.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Despite the snappy brilliance of the setup, Prime doesn't entirely deliver on its promise -- something about the way it ends feels like a cop-out, and the opportunities for humor aren't exploited quite as well as they could be.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Prime is neither deep nor as shallow as it first threatens to be, but surprisingly good fun.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Sure, this romance, starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, follows a familiar boy-meets-girl scenario, but Younger turns the routine into combustible fun.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Frankly, the most disturbing thing about Prime is that Uma Thurman is now officially an Older Woman.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The sort of movie where all of the best jokes are in the trailer, but these days a romantic comedy with anything worth quoting at all is something of an accomplishment.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Despite its title, Prime is not a cut above. This romantic comedy's predictability and rather dull love story make it the cinematic equivalent of a slightly stale hamburger.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

All of this makes the movie pleasant, but not very memorable - a pale mirror image of "Shopgirl," which touches on some similar themes.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

Despite a comic Yiddishe mama turn by Meryl Streep and a sensitively nuanced performance by Uma Thurman in a convincing changeup from her recent kickass action roles, Prime remains an oddly juiceless older woman-younger man romance, with a Freudian twist.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Now that Woody Allen is no longer making acceptable Woody Allen movies, it's surprising we're not seeing more comedies like Prime, a slight but well-meaning picture that strives for the same kind of pleasurably neurotic sophistication that Allen, at his best, used to give us.

Portland Oregonian Mike Russell

Unfortunately, this rich story about actual adults takes up maybe a third of Prime. The rest of the time, we're hanging with David and Rafi as they act out relationship cliches.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Not one bit of the story tracks. But with these women in these roles, you're asking for truth?

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Younger, for whatever reason, simply can't abide their happiness, and so he destructs the relationship from time to time for no reason, using plot devices that wouldn't have been out of place in episodes of "Three's Company."

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

On and on drags this amour fou, with its one-liners, ripostes, elaborate misunderstandings and chastened reaction shots, all courtesy of writer-director Ben Younger, straining to let out his inner femme after the testosterone excesses of "Boiler Room."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Greenberg and Thurman are both engaging, but they can't quite compensate for their characters' shallowness. Streep, on the other hand, just can't stop compensating. Her oy-vey-can-you-believe-the-kid-and-his-shiksa performance is all studied mannerisms with no real heart.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

I found nothing likable or funny about either of these characters, who both deserve a pie in the face. (One of them even gets it.)

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

A romantic saga that dares to ask realistic questions.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Prime seems aimed at prime-time television, with endless iterations on the same theme of "frustrated relationship" that will finally get resolved during sweeps week in the season before cancellation. Call it: My Mama, the Shrink.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The occasionally amusing, generally fatuous romantic comedy about a dazzling divorcee, a smitten Jewish boy and a controlling Jewish mom who also happens to be the divorcee's psychotherapist, is a high-concept movie with a Yiddish accent.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film's greatest asset, however, is its unusually authentic use of Manhattan locations: Younger clearly knows New York much better than the topography of the human heart.

Empire Anna Smith

This has the raw material for a decent rom-com, but the aimless structure and ambiguous tone undermine both humour and romance.

Village Voice Ben Kenigsberg

Not quite a romance by numbers, Prime is nevertheless a movie we need like a hole in the head.

Premiere Ryan Devlin

The sheer absurdity of the presented relationship is redeemed by a sort of surprise ending, but by the time it arrives, you wish it had come sooner, as the pain of viewing has already been interminably long.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It has the low-budget look and feel of an indie dating comedy -- and not a very good one at that.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alan G gave it a9:
Meryl Streep is an absolute joy to watch. She can do it all. So her character and the plot weren't totally realistic. But who cares. It's a comedy. In fact I'd say it was somewhat in keeping with the screwball comedies of the 40's. Uma Thurman delivered a first rate performance. It was nice to see her in a non-Tarantino film. The woman can act. I also liked the fact that the ending wasn't your typical Hollywood, everything works out perfectly ending.

Chad S. gave it a5:
Because it's Meryl Streep, because she's an actress who radiates intelligence and common sense; the premise for "Prime" is hard to swallow (even for a comedy). No therapist alive would subject themselves to their offspring's sex life. That's just plain yucky (and vaguely incestuous), but at least Uma Thurman manages to deliver a truly quotable line which supplies "Prime" with its one gut-busting moment of humor. Had Rafi been written a little more shrewdly, putting a book in her hands would've made for a stronger contrast with David's Nintendo obsession (and therefore better accentuate the disparity of the couple's age and life experiences). Since Rafi works with models (who are thought to be stereotypically dumb), being the smartest girl in the room at her workplace amongst all those hairdressers, photographers and blondes, would've made for a lot of crowd-pleasing, albeit easy jokes. Unfortunately, nothing funny transpires at Rafi's job. As for David's "job", we need to see him at the canvas to better round out his character. He's obviously more than a shiftless slob who camps out all day on Rafi's couch, but that's all "Prime" wants us to see.

Jack S. gave it an8:
Better than expected--about 30 minutes too long, but great performances (and thurman is fantastic).

Dale M gave it a3:
Neither entertaining nor enlightening. Meryl Streep seems to be practicing for stock character parts in B-grade movies. What's sad is that the movie seems to think it has something to say, but you come away realizing it really had nothing to say. The movie is essentially resolved by the deus ex machina of having the stock character of the "young artist" become an instant success. You never figure out how he learned to paint without any contact with the art world. We have to assume he was just created to play a part in the movie just like all the other stock characters.

Tony B. gave it a5:
The film is at its best when Meryl Streep is on screen. When she's not, it's a bit of a drag. A pleasant surprise was its ending, although a connecting scene between the last sequence and the one before it would have helped.

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
Cute, funny, endearing. Pretty well written, as well. As a suggle on the couch rental, excellent; had I paid $9, I'd have said "ok." (I'm a Meryl Streep fanantic. She could wear a burka stand against a plain white background, and chant th eKoran, and I'd gladly watch. Add Uma, and who neeeds a plot?!)

Maryellen G. gave it a2:
After I watched this dog, I went to see what my man Ebert had said about it. Three stars? I wondered if he was on pain meds when he watched thiss unbelievably bad piece of crap. I looked at the comments below and wondered what the hell is wrong with me? I watched this movie like drivers stop to look at bad wrecks. I kept turning it off, and then found myself caught in a bad gaper's block, turning it on again to see if it were possible that it was as bad as I thought it was. I kept wondering if someone had threatened Thurman's or Streep's chiildrens' liives tto force them to be in a movie so bad it could have been released directly to DVD. Technically, it had editing so choppily cut it was almost funny. The technical qualilties overall appeared to be only slightly abve a student super-8 project. I could go on forever about the lack of chemistry and the absurdity of a gorgeous 37 -year-old , well ll aware of her biological clock ticking, falling for this wet behind the ears putz. This dog just kept barking until I had but to take my leave of it.

Prime Universal Pictures

Prime
Universal Pictures