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Real Blonde, The

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Real Blonde, The reviews
48
N/A User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 19 critic reviews
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Based on 0 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy

Written by: Tom DiCillo

Directed by: Tom DiCillo

Release Date:
Theatrical: February 27, 1998
DVD: January 26, 1999

Running Time: 105 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for sexuality and language

Starring Matthew Modine, Catherine Keener, Daryl Hannah, Maxwell Caulfield, Elizabeth Berkley, Marlo Thomas, Bridgette Wilson, and Buck Henry

A hilarious look at ambitious young entertainment and fashion-industry denizens and the gulf between their dreams...and reality. (Paramount Pictures)

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...

75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A meandering movie that usually meanders in entertaining directions.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Enjoyable and inviting.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A sharp, engaging look at what it's like to be hungry and not-so-young in New York.

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75

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

A smart, funny and endearing movie. It has enough cynicism to satisfy the part of DiCillo that would mock a blue-eyed superstar, yet enough genuine sentiment to make it possible for us to swallow the cynicism.

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70

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A lively, well-constructed film with a large and appealing cast.

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70

Variety Lisa Nesselson

Enjoyable, if sometimes scattered, comic exploration of the quest for integrity and depth in a world wowed by artifice and superficiality.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

DiCillo has always had the laconic, funkified, vaguely surreal air of a Woody Allen on cough medicine (or a Jim Jarmusch on Jolt, for that matter), but The Real Blonde is just so much ado about nada.

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60

Empire Caroline Westbrook

The Real Blonde has lost that certain something that earmarked DiCillo's earlier, more offbeat outings, resulting in a film which is pleasant rather than innovative.

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58

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Modine, as a morosely self-involved actor, looks as if he's about to strangle someone -- and the movie, an attack on superficiality, never quite makes it out of the shallow end.

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50

Los Angeles Times Jack Mathews

By interweaving a very contemporary love story into these themes, DiCillo has at least given it all a fresh spin.

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50

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Under the veneer of hip lies a bland romantic comedy wrapped in a layer of less-than-biting lifestyle satire, whose single most authentic moment involves an old woman and her scruffy mutt Buddy. Not cool.

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50

Film Threat Chris Gore

An adequate attempt, but sorry, it's just not groundbreaking.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Christopher Harris

Like the fakery it satirizes, DiCillo's Real Blonde ends up ringing hollow.

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50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The movie raises more interesting issues - often connected with the hazy lines between appearance and reality - than it's prepared to coherently explore.

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40

The Onion (A.V. Club) Joshua Klein

Unfortunately, this slight, dull film would have benefited from a bit more style, as well as substance, as its lame characters and obvious observations never rise too far above the soap operas DiCillo parodies.

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30

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Never manages to make its characters anything other than cartoons.

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30

New York Magazine David Denby

Stupidity is also an issue in the independent film The Real Blonde, in which everyone seems to have suffered an IQ slippage of some 40 points.

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30

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

If DiCillo had been going anywhere with this, I'd have gladly followed. But setting up petty ironies and pathetic references to Woody Allen seems to be his only goal.

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20

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Cute and smarmy are nothing new for writer-director Tom DiCillo; what is new is the crushingly unfunny fusion of the two he's hit upon for this film.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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