Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 30 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 32 Ratings

  • Starring: Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman
  • Summary: A series of intertwining love stories, stories of connections missed and made between people, how people always struggle to make a connection, and to what degree they succeed or don't. (Good Machine Releasing)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 30
  2. Negative: 0 out of 30
  1. Reviewed by: Dave Kehr
    100
    Masterful.
  2. 100
    It is not a film for most people. It is certainly for adults only. But it shows Todd Solondz as a filmmaker who deserves attention, who hears the unhappiness in the air and seeks its sources.
  3. Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    80
    [Solondz's] blistering, brilliantly transgressive satire is sure to rattle even the most jaded filmgoer. It's also a remarkably compassionate profile of American life at its most desperate.
  4. Everyone who likes this movie calls it "disturbing," but what disturbs me most is the self-loathing laughter it provokes, similar to what one often hears at Woody Allen and Michael Moore comedies.

See all 30 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 19
  2. Negative: 5 out of 19
  1. JoshC
    10
    Masterfull! Todd Solondz for president.
  2. A memorable if uncomfortable watch. As a comedy it falls short for me as the material is just too depressing to elicit a laugh, BUT it is compelling as drama. Some great performances, not a "feel-good" film in the least, but very well made none-the less. If it suffers from anything in particular it is just too long - given the pace perhaps best watched over 2 sessions Expand
  3. SteveM.
    4
    I had this built up by countless friends. It was so incredibly drawn out. The only story that kept my interest was the psychiatrist. Rarely made me laugh; more often made me sleepy. BIG let down. Expand
  4. AnthonyP.
    2
    Clever, yes, but so utterly cynical, so completely bitter: every single character is either singularly pathetic or reprehensible - almost no complexity or dimension to any person in the film, no handle to grasp anyone's humanity, unless you accept that humanity is just the pits! The writing is all affect; the lines, gratuitously sardonic: self-involved people happlessly dumping on one another, poisoning everyone, everything in the film, poisoning the film itself. There is no glimpse of potential for any character - no soul; all misery. What amazes me is how much favor it has found with the critics. Are they so cynical, so starved for originalty (one credit to this film) that they are happy to bathe in its abject, unrelenting wretchedness? It must be a holiday of schadenfreude for the culturally overfed! Expand

See all 19 User Reviews

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