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Jack Goes Boating
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 27
  3. Negative: 0 out of 27
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  1. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    83
    It's the kind of story that can look pedestrian on paper, but when brought to life this skillfully, proves to be genuinely inspiring.
  2. Arizona Republic
    Reviewed by: Bill Goodykoontz
    80
    A quiet character study filled with damaged, insular people who live life in small increments, only occasionally exploding in emotion.
  3. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: Steve Ramos
    80
    A specialty house crowd pleaser on par with their previous arthouse hit "The Visitor," and Hoffman should be prepared for another round of acclaim; except this time, admirers will be discussing his directing work.
  4. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Dan Kois
    80
    Hoffman's directorial debut transfers to film the company's ethos of an ensemble performing with ruthless honesty encouragingly well. And that's why it's fitting that this drama asks so much of, and gets so much from, Ortiz.
  5. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    The movie stays alert to the dreams and disappointments of four average people on an emotional roller coaster. It's a sublimely acted movie, hilarious and heartfelt.
  6. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    The actors make it new and poignant, and avoid going over the top in the story's limited psychic and physical space.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    75
    The ruefully funny Jack Goes Boating, which, refreshingly, takes a generous view of its flawed characters, is a must for us many Hoffman fans.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    75
    A successful work of art. To see this movie is to feel that you've lived it.
  9. Orlando Sentinel
    Reviewed by: Roger Moore
    75
    A low energy romance, a movie that rewards a filmgoer with the patience to let this affair play itself out. Sink or swim, Connie and Jack will come out of this changed. And so will we.
  10. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    70
    Hoffman emerges as a confident film director with visual flair and, no surprise, a remarkable ability to maximize his fellow actors' work.
  11. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    70
    The picture is well-crafted; it just doesn't breathe.
  12. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Gary Goldstein
    70
    Best appreciated for its sweet eccentricities (beginning with reggae lover Jack's would-be dreadlocks), optimistic outlook and authentic New York vibe, as much as for its commitment to being exactly what it is: an affectionate homage to working-class underdogs trying to carve out their own little corners of happiness.
  13. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    70
    Displaying a girth that will give hope to overweight romantics everywhere, Hoffman knows his character inside and out and invites the viewer close to this limited, good-hearted fellow.
  14. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    70
    Making his feature directing debut, Hoffman shows considerable generosity toward the other players, which was probably a good idea given his own listless performance as the mumbling title character.
  15. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    67
    Jack Goes Boating tells a tender story reasonably well, but it rarely lets viewers feel the emotions instead of thoughtfully observing them.
  16. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    63
    The performances are uniformly top-notch. It was a treat to see Ortiz, an actor known on screen mostly for his impressive cameos in movies like "El Cantante," in a leading part enabling him to express his considerable emotional range.
  17. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Scott Bowles
    63
    Jack Goes Boating won't knock you over, but it lulls you with its slow-warming heart.
  18. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    This is one of those rare movies that genuinely likes its characters and wishes them the best; as agonizing as it can be to watch Jack fumble toward human connection, Hoffman knows the fumbling's the point.
  19. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    63
    Like Ernest Borgnine, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an unconventional leading man with an Oscar on his mantle, and his bittersweet Jack Goes Boating has elicited comparisons with "Marty."
  20. Empire
    Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    Oct 31, 2011
    60
    Philip Seymour Hoffman puts his oar in with a tender, thoughtful adaption of Robert Glaudini's stage play. A little too measured to deliver an emotional punch, it's nevertheless beautifully acted and at times rather lovely.
  21. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    60
    Hoffman has a nice eye for detail, painting an empathetic portrait of lost souls that recalls 1955's still-powerful romance "Marty."
  22. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    60
    If you fancy a modern "Marty," with the old warmth muffled by unfriendly snow, go right ahead. [20 Sept. 2010, p.121]
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  23. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    50
    All in all, Jack Goes Boating is an auspicious -- if slightly ostentatious -- debut by Hoffman, one of today's greatest actors. Maybe next time his performance in front of his camera will be as subtle as his performance behind it.
  24. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    50
    Jack Goes Boating barely stays afloat – it's a deep disappointment.
  25. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    50
    Ultimately, though, Jack Goes Boating is too much of a banal thing. Jack's a good guy, and you root for him all the way to the end, but, wistfully, that doesn't make him an any more interesting everyday Joe than he is.
  26. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    50
    As is so often the case in modest, aimless little movies like this one, it is the acting that saves Jack Goes Boating from triviality or worse.
  27. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Aaron Hillis
    40
    Hoffman predictably knocks a familiar role out of the park (and just as unsurprisingly, wrings excellence from his performers) in this rather trivial, downbeat four-hander about a working-class couple trying to connect during a Gotham winter.
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User Reviews

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User Score
6.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 17 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 6
  3. Negative: 2 out of 6
  1. DavidP
    3
    I'm such a huge fan of Hoffman that I went wanting (and expecting) to like this film but alas, I couldn't. I found it incoherent. Yes, the acting is wonderful but when all is said and done, so what? Great acting alone cannot make a great film. There needs to be more...and there isn't. Too bad.… Full Review »
  2. MorriBey
    3
    I was expecting one of those movies where nothing happens, yet everything happens but in this case nothing does happen. Even Hoffman could not save this movie. Its like Punch Drunk love without the good parts. The only good thing is the Goldfrapp and Fleet foxes songs.… Full Review »
  3. Shiira
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. Maybe Jack(Phillip Seymour Hoffman) caught a midnight showing of Perry Henzell's "The Harder They Come" at some brokedown second-run theater, or simply bought the iconic movie's reggae-dominated soundtrack, but regardless of where the aging dread-locked taxi driver first heard The Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon", we know it changed his life, probably for the worse, and now as middle age encroaches, the ganja-smoking cabbie is paying the price for being a Rastafarian in a capitalist society. When Jack was a younger man, with his young man's ideals and axioms, lighting up a joint functioned as both an act of spiritual enlightenment and rebellion against the Ideological State Apparatuses of our country's democratic government, unlike now, in which Jack gets high for the sake of getting high, without any designs on getting closer to God, or being an anti-capitalist. If Jack's mission in his misspent life was to reject western society, consider the mission accomplished, because western society has resoundingly rejected him. To help illustrate this point, cinematically, Jack and his best friend Clyde(John Ortiz) stare at the city skyline from the hinterlands of their cabstand, far-removed from the movers and shakers who pound the pavement of the New York city streets, while they stand near their stretch limo taxis and try not to crazy, as life passes them by. That's why Jack needs a new song. "Rivers of Babylon" no longer posseses the dynamism to make the Rasta feel "irie"; it's a personal theme song whose original theme of staying positive haunts the cab driver, like in the opening scene, where Jack, eyes wide open in bed, looks disillusioned and frightened, unsure of the future, and yet he insists on keeping himself insulated with The Melodians' music, like a junkie, still remembering and hoping for that original contact high. Somebody has to save him; somebody has to yank off those headphones, and maybe that somebody is the embalmer's assistant, Connie(Amy Ryan), who works with Lucy(Daphnie Rubin-Vega), Clyde's wife, at a funeral parlour. "Jack Goes Boating" is nothing new for Philip Seymour Hoffman, quite possibly, the least vain of the A-list actors(John C. Reilly running a close second), in which he played the same sort of "loser"(opposite Camryn Manheim) in Todd Solondz's "Happiness", but as a filmmaker, Hoffman has a lot more sympathy for people, and never allows his debut offering to lapse into a burlesque of miserableness. Faced with new possibilities, personal and professional horizons to counter the onset of arrested development that has its hooks in the cab driver, Jack takes the plunge, figuratively and literally, jumping into romance and the pool, lessons both, in love and swimming, the latter, as a means by which the MTA aspiree plans to take Connie boating in a conformist lake at the conformist public park. In "The Harder They Come", Ivan(Jimmy Cliff) misses the boat(to Cuba) he desperately swims toward, the same fate which could have befallen Jack if not for the dinner party incident at his friends' house. Because of the drugs, nobody notices the dinner that Jack had prepared from scratch for this intimate gathering, catches on fire, as the dinner guests were too busy passing the hookah around, just like how The Musical Youth taught them, "on the left-hand side". Outraged, at both his ruined casserole and life, Jack locks himself in the bathroom, but is lured out by a Melodians' sing-a-long. The reggae song proves itself effective for short-term problems: the ruined casserole. It's not nearly as effective for long-term ones, though, when Lucy replaces Jack in the loo, after Clyde upsets his wife for inviting her old flame to the party, a passive-aggressive move that costs him his marriage. Connie hands the cuckolded husband the tape recorder, then shrinks away from the potential shrapnel, as the swimming instructor beats "Rivers of Babylon" into permanent silence. Clyde's actions have the effect of giving his best friend a fresh start in life. The song needed to die; the song had worked in concert with the ganja, a facilitating accomplice to the drug that kept Jack in a fixed state. In an earlier scene, during her stay at the hospital following an assault, he tells Connie not to worry if she doesn't get all the lyrics. It's an ironical statement for Jack to make because he doesn't get the lyrics either. After "Jack Goes Boating" with Connie, then Jack can go music shopping with the embalmer's assistant and find a new song that describes their new life together, since his Rastafarian pretensions is a thing of the past. The Zionist state doesn't end up killing Jack like it did the Jimmy Cliff character in "The Harder They Come"(or Peter Tosh, in real life, for that matter). He's a strong swimmer; he doesn't miss the boat.… Full Review »
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