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90So truly and exceptionally fine, a spiny and dispassionate little masterpiece of a marriage movie.
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75Curiously, the film seems to have no discernible point, and yet -- this is practically unique -- the absence of a point becomes, in itself, a form of narrative interest.
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75Strong performances and sharp dialogue distinguish Jeff Lipsky's melancholy second feature, which charts the two-year course of a "perfect" relationship whose flaws are evident from the outset.
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70Mr. Lipsky's screenplay, a messy collection of fragments arranged chronologically, adds up to one of the most intimate screen portraits of a relationship ever attempted.
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67The hero remains such an exhibitionistically cocky, walled-off jerk that Flannel Pajamas' glib conversational ''candor'' yields no mystery. And that's a problem in two hours of talk.
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63Love can be a battleground, and, despite its homey-sounding title and gentle, almost nonchalant air, Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas gives us a series of messages from the front.
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58You never really end up rooting for their happiness, as a couple or individually, so emotionally there's not much at stake.
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50What starts out seeming like a poor man's Woody Allen morphs into something closer to an American version of "Scenes From a Marriage."
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50In what essentially is a two-character play, Kirk and Nicholson behave more like acting partners than real people. Their lack of appetite for each other is particularly awkward in the frequent scenes requiring casual nudity and sexual activity.
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At a full two hours, Lipsky's talky movie is more compelling in its second half, when the spouses finally get around to being themselves.
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50Visually, the film is without flair or ambition, conveying no sense of atmosphere or mood. But the performances put it over.
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50The script is overwritten and has too many themes--suicide, abuse, anti-Semitism--to support, but Nicholson does remarkable work in an unsympathetic role, helped by Lipsky's fine control of his characters.
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40The results are far from perfect: For one thing, Lipsky is so far from being a fluid visual storyteller that the garishly lit, appallingly composed Flannel Pajamas makes another two-hander talkfest Lipsky famously distributed -- "My Dinner With Andre" -- seem like "Lawrence of Arabia" by comparison.
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40For all the time we spend watching Justin and Nicole negotiate their needs, we have no idea who these people are.
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38Ever been on a blind date that you knew would be dismal from the start? Well, this is the movie version of that date, stretched out over the slowest two hours imaginable.
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38For much of Flannel Pajamas I wondered if the couple's big problem was that Stuart was secretly gay. Nothing so interesting - he's just a narcissistic control freak and she's off-puttingly needy.
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30The two main characters are so shallow and self-involved -- not to mention the friends, family members and sundry apparatchiks they lug around with them -- that the two hours of Flannel Pajamas begin to feel like real time.
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25Opaque acting, excruciating dialogue, and flat, affectless direction certainly don't help, but even in brilliant hands, Flannel Pajamas would still be a movie about two horrible, unsympathetic people doing dreadful things to each other, and learning nothing in the process. Why should anyone else have to endure it too?
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20The thing is, these chatty, pedantic, annoying characters are simply not interesting enough to follow for five minutes, let alone over two hours.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 3 out of 5
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JerryM.10"One of the wisest films I can remember about love and human intimacy. I will not forget it." Roger Ebert That about says it all.
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EvieB.2
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drewH.1