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Alex & Emma
Metascore
32 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 35 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 35
  3. Negative: 17 out of 35
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    Alex & Emma isn't nearly as clever as Reiner's classic "Misery," a very different look at a male writer and his female companion. But it's diverting fun.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    60
    A desperately slight romantic comedy marked by contrived romance and little comedy.
  3. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    50
    Reiner gets lucky with his two stars. Wilson has charm to spare, and Hudson brings humor and sexiness to playing Emma and four au pair girls from different countries. But even they can't float a balloon with lead in it.
  4. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    50
    The movie doesn't deserve any of the talent bestowed on it, from Reiner's amiable direction to the occasional grace notes in the performances of Hudson, Marceau and David Paymer.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    This is a movie full of tin-eared humor and situations too contrived to give romance a toehold.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    50
    From the incessant rain that blurs the joyless Boston setting to the mysterious decision to make a brunette Hudson look as plain as possible, it's an evanescent fancy devoid of sparkle.
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    A cute and amusing little romance that has all the fiery impetuosity of an egg sandwich.
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    50
    Though it has some mildly amusing moments (mostly in the visuals accompanying the novel's narration), Alex & Emma is disappointing, neither very romantic nor very comic.
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Other than a high cuteness factor, there's not much here. This is a warmed-over, low-end recycling of director Rob Reiner's own "When Harry Met Sally."
  10. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Laine Ewen
    50
    Had the picture maintained a sense of lightheartedness, it may have better lived up to its genre. But, as is, Alex & Emma is flat, neither whimsically romantic nor consistently comedic.
  11. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    50
    The contrived script is stretched to the breaking point by Reiner's listless direction.
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Angel Cohn
    50
    Hudson and Wilson share a natural and easy chemistry that helps compensate for the Cuban-mobster subplot.
  13. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Kevin Carr
    50
    Too much of Alex & Emma is an overt attempt to recreate the lightning in a bottle Reiner achieved with “When Harry Met Sally.”
  14. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    42
    This is still Reiner's worst movie since 1994's "North." Wilson is lackluster, the film's depiction of the collaborative process is (unlike "Adaptation") tortuously false, and it's so disrespectful to the realities of writing and publishing that it has no satiric bite.
  15. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    40
    Dull and listless from the start, partly because the leads fail to connect and partly because both the script and the direction let them down.
  16. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    40
    Life imitates art, except there’s precious little of either here.
  17. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    40
    The movie and the movie-within-a-movie share a chemistry even more awkward than that of their flat-footed leads.
  18. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    40
    The actors make this fun if you can overlook the ludicrous view of Jeremy Leven's screenplay.
  19. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    38
    Emma writes everything down and then offers helpful suggestions, although she fails to supply the most useful observation of all, which would be to observe that the entire novel is complete crap.
  20. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    38
    The lack of sexual tension is astounding.
  21. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Roger Moore
    38
    Alex & Emma is a literary-minded romantic comedy that barely passes English, and flunks chemistry.
  22. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    38
    Wilson brings low-wattage amiability to his part, as always. Hudson's mismatched with him but tries to set him afire.
  23. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    33
    It's hard to say what's more excruciating: Alex's novel, which is like ''The Great Gatsby'' rewritten by Lizzie McGuire, or his quarrelsome flirtation with Emma, who has no existence as a character apart from her drive to reshape Alex into a specimen of respectable tamed manhood.
  24. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    33
    You can't help but think how much better this film would be had Woody Allen directed it...How much more acerbic fun would it be to see Judy Davis playing stenographer to a neurotic, writer's-blocked Woody?
  25. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    30
    It's like a three-times-too-long sitcom pilot missing the laugh track.
  26. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    30
    A painfully contrived and artificial exercise in futility.
  27. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    30
    A stunningly inert piece of cinema, a movie that basically boils down to serial shots of people talking to each other.
  28. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    30
    The inside story is weak, dull and head-poundingly boring, and the outside story is only slightly better, thanks to the lukewarm likability of its two stars.
  29. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    25
    Watching Wilson and Hudson toil thanklessly through this mess is more laborious than writing the Great American Novel. And a lot less lucrative.
  30. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Karen Heller
    25
    Reiner, who made "This is Spinal Tap," "The Sure Thing," "When Harry Met Sally" -- memorable movies all -- has made this silly slice of Lean Cuisine. And that, in the end, makes Alex and Emma an utter tragedy.
  31. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Jean Oppenheimer
    20
    It's like an amateur theater production. Reiner rushes through the setup in such a mad dash that it feels like a cartoon.
  32. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    20
    There's so little chemistry between Mr. Wilson and Ms. Hudson that you begin to look back on what now seems like the halcyon time of "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."
  33. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Laura Sinagra
    10
    This isn't one for the time capsule--just bury it.
  34. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    10
    How could a movie with such likable actors be so deeply dislikable?
    All this critic's reviews
  35. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    0
    Astonishingly dull. The leads have zero chemistry, the supporting actors are even worse, and the script is a lifeless, draggy thing.
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