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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Metascore
44 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 16
  3. Negative: 1 out of 16
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  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: James Greenberg
    70
    One hell of a date movie. A surgical examination of the male psyche based on David Foster Wallace's book and written and directed by John Krasinski, there is plenty of food for thought and argument.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    67
    At times, the movie could have been called "Me and You and Every One of the Bastards We Know," but Krasinski preserves Wallace's whooshing roller coasters of words, powered by the fuel of confession.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    67
    Raises the question of whether Krasinski made this movie because he really loves Wallace's work, or because just he wanted to show Hollywood that the loveable doof from The Office can actually act.
  4. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    An insightful, sharply written and unsettlingly amusing exploration of the darker elements of masculinity.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    60
    In his directorial debut, Krasinski doesn't seem to believe in his hideous men so much as he appears intimidated by them.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    50
    A blast from the 1980s, when the idea that men were essentially rapists and women rapees was a popular way to score chicks on campus.
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    50
    What this arid and arty exercise offers is the opportunity for a bunch of actors, many of them tethered to TV series, to deliver theatrical monologues pulsing with misogyny and narcissism. It's like second-rate Neil Labute.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    If we learn nothing else about Krasinski as a filmmaker, it's that he thinks more is more.
  9. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    Works only in spurts.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Michael Ordona
    50
    The film is intelligent, well crafted and often funny, but it may not sufficiently reward even the brief time it asks one to spend with such hideous men.
  11. NPR
    Reviewed by: Ian Buckwalter
    40
    Faced with the unenviable choice between honoring his daunting inspiration and telling his own story, the director shoots straight down the middle -- and misses both targets.
  12. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    40
    The question is, could someone turn these full-frontal-dudity snapshots into a satisfying, cohesive movie? Answer: no, but not for lack of trying.
  13. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    40
    They're not all hideous, the men who sit for interviews with a graduate student (Nicholson) and unload their dirty laundry. Sometimes they're just feckless, or crass; some are even pitiable.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    40
    Compacted into an 80-minute mishmash of interviews, confessions and sketches, melded into a shaky mosaic, the answers from a cross section of men are shallow, self-serving and ultimately unenlightening.
  15. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    40
    It's a very academic movie about academics that belongs in academia, not movie theaters.
  16. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Chuck Wilson
    20
    As a film, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is a disaster.
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