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Thumbsucker
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 26 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by:
Mike Mills
Walter Kirn (novel)
Directed by: Mike Mills
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 16, 2005
DVD: January 24, 2006
Running Time: 96 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for drug/alcohol use and sexuality involving teens, language and a disturbing image
Starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Kelli Garner, Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn, Benjamin Bratt, and Chase Offerle
An honest and funny look at the struggles of people who feel deeply flawed, both those in youth and middle age. They yearn to be anything but their real selves with their real fears and doubts. Instead, they want to be "normal." They look for magic answers to fix themselves – only to realize that they can’t be someone else, that "normal" does not exist, and that their flaws are what make them human and loveable. (Sony Pictures Classics)
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...
Empire Damon Wise
A refreshingly low-key treatment of teenage trauma, with a lovely star performance and an unforgettable approach to orthodontics.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Ken Tucker
One of the wonderful things about Thumbsucker is that, unlike so many movies in which a character changes in order to propel the plot forward, this one stops to follow up on the consequences of those changes.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Bob Westal
Benefits from a goofy yet incisive sense of humor and some extremely strong performances.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Mr. Pucci, emerging slowly from behind a stray lock of brown hair, plays Justin's ambiguous transformation with deft understatement. And Mike Mills, who wrote and directed, keeps the film from slipping either into melodrama or facile satire, the two traps into which this genre is most apt to fall.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
It feels fresh, almost improvised, mainly because Mills doesn’t drive his scenes toward an obvious resolution.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
It's the kind of movie that lives and dies by a viewer's own idiosyncrasies.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Pucci pulls off Justin's transformation without resorting to histrionics; it's like a radio-station signal finally coming in clearly.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
A perfectly cast Keanu Reeves pokes deadpan fun at himself in the role of Justin's New Age dentist, who hypnotizes the kid and encourages him to find his inner ''power animal.'' And Vince Vaughn, in a rare straight turn, is excellent as Justin's high school teacher.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
As it stands, the film is perhaps a tad low-key to catch the eye, but it's carefully enough made and, especially, acted, to keep a hold on the brain and heart long after it's over.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's not a great movie, or one that should preoccupy you much afterwards, but it's certainly a good one. It's a fine debut for first-timer Mills.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie contains many of the usual ingredients of teenage suburban angst tragicomedies, but writer-director Mike Mills, who began with a novel by Walter Kirn, uses actors who can riff.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Most disappointing is the ending, which, in projecting the possibility of a saner and more hopeful world, is a bit of a cop-out.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Robert Dominguez
It's Pucci - who's already won a couple of acting prizes on the festival circuit, including Sundance - who steals the film with a wonderful performance blending the awkward innocence, vulnerability and pain of being a teen.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
The movie has a lot of good bits and terrific performances, including a too-perfect Keanu Reeves as a mystic orthodontist.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Pucci is an actor to watch: He rides this spellbinder without softening the truths that plague the thumbsucker in all of us.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Thumbsucker is true to its nature, and that makes Justin's eventual transformation all the more rewarding.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's a familiar story, but Mills and Pucci treat it as if it were the first time anyone had thought to tell it.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Thumbsucker is a head-scratcher. It's well directed and acted. Yet the story has little emotional pull.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Thumbsucker (like "Donnie Darko") is more likely to prosper in the long haul as a home-format cult fave than in its initial arthouse tour. Both offer eccentric humor within a fairly somber overall tone, support-cast surprises, and (to a lesser degree in Thumbsucker) fable-like, hyperreal elements.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
American independent movies about awkward adolescence are never in short supply, but this highly assured first feature by commercials and music video director Mike Mills is the first since "Donnie Darko" to view the latter stages of teenagerdom as fodder for a phantasmagorical odyssey of Lewis Carroll–like distortions.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
A gently stirring symphony about emotional transition filled with lovely musical passages and softly nuanced performances.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The film's underlying notion, that imperfection is the essence of humanity and the pursuit of bland flawlessness a kind of soul-killing drug, is far more compelling than its story of clichéd teen angst.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
So no one would argue that Thumbsucker sucks. But the thing does seem just so indie-movie familiar.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The movie and its theme of self-acceptance has an honesty, undercut by occasional preciousness, that makes it worth seeing.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Thumbsucker aims high but swerves too frequently between the engaging and the credibility-defying to be satisfying.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Pucci proves to be one of the most charismatic male ingenues since Johnny Depp.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The actors can't escape the confines of the warmed-over, coming-of-age-in-suburbia script by Mills, from a novel by Walter Kirn.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The parents are the casualties of Mills' misplaced sincerity, which makes Thumbsucker the quintessential misadapted head-scratcher.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 26 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mark K. gave it an8:
A refreshingly original film with plenty of smiles and pathos. It is easy to imagine oneself in the main character's place, which makes the movie more effective. Overall, very enjoyable.
Dave C. gave it a4:
Zzzzzzz... trite and vacuous indie film. Non-descript where it thinks it is being subtle, banal where it believes it is being profound. Soundtrack was very good though.
Matt J. gave it a9:
A cross between two great films, fight club and donnie darko, feeling that the weight of the world is on your shoulders, and trying to find all the ways possible to become perfect, but realising true perfection is imperfect
Jason S. gave it a5:
A good attempt but in the end too lightweight. Some good central performances though and Reeves is surprisingly good.
Kenny M. gave it a10:
This was by far the best movie I've seen in the last year...great acting, great filming and amazing music..props to tim delaughter and the polyphonic spree, and the late elliot smith...amazing, touching, beautiful movie...must see.
Mark gave it a7:
Although some of it is a little too surreal for its own good, and the transformation from Ritalin stoner to pot stoner is forced and not well done, this is a fine movie with a great message. Vincent D'onofrio is his usual great self, and Pucci and Swindon are both amazing.
Paul F. gave it an8:
The best aspect to this movie was the layers it took on as the lead character evolved. The worst aspect to this movie was that no matter what age the characters were they all seemed the same in their existential philosophizing. In anycase the acting was fairly good and the film didn't rely on cheap over the top shock value stunts (well maybe one but it was funny). In short it was a film that attempted to say something profound. I do not know if it suceeded, but it did have its moments.
