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Moonlight Mile
Metascore
59 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 34
  3. Negative: 3 out of 34
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Not many movies know that truth. Moonlight Mile is based on it.
  2. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    90
    It's a combination of good story, nice moments and appealing texture.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    88
    Quirkily likable comedy-drama about a family trying to coping with loss, contains three of the best performances you're likely to see in an American movie this year.
  4. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    80
    A dazzling true-life comedy that might be the funniest movie about grief ever made.
  5. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    80
    Both funny and telling about the messy passages of grief.
  6. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    75
    The film drips with honest emotion and confusion.
  7. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    The first half of Moonlight Mile feels like the runaway trailer for a movie that can't wait to jerk your tears. But to quote Joe in a moment of epiphany, there's a ''truth enema'' out there, and, boy, it really brings this movie around.
  8. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    75
    Understands that extreme feelings bring out weird reactions. Tension and sadness will occasionally be interrupted by humor -- even slapstick.
    All this critic's reviews
  9. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Steve Simels
    70
    An occasionally surreal meditation on coping with loss, and a love story with a dark side the size of Montana.
  10. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    70
    Hoffman and Sarandon work well together, and Gyllenhaal, who's carved out a niche for himself as the new face of internalized conflict, fits nicely into a role Hoffman would have made a meal of 30 years ago.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    70
    Though its conclusion is too tidily therapeutic, and though elements of its story strain credibility, Moonlight Mile has an understated, lived-in quality and a wry, unforced sense of the absurd.
  12. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    70
    The film is full of sharp acting and home truths, but its ambition to be different finally surrenders to its need to be loved.
  13. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    67
    An admirable effort, but too many words, words, and more words, and not enough of the ache of that half-smile.
  14. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    63
    The movie doesn't really jell. Glossy, good-looking and well-produced, it affects you and even sometimes moves you, but it doesn't really convincingly connect.
  15. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    Jake Gyllenhaal is 21 and looks as though he's going on 16. This is not a problem for films like "Lovely & Amazing" and "The Good Girl"-- It is a problem in Moonlight Mile, where he plays a grown man recovering from the murder of his fiancée.
  16. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    Gyllenhaal, in the pivotal role, brings a scruffy, boyish charm to the proceedings, but his big scenes with Hoffman and Sarandon are one-sided - he's not in the same league, and comes off as a bit of a cipher.
  17. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    63
    Occasionally feels like a Neil Simon rewrite of "In the Bedroom," as it see-saws between hard truths and quirky humour.
  18. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    63
    Inside Moonlight Mile, an honest and heartbreakingly true movie is struggling to get out.
  19. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Michael Dequina
    60
    An emotionally honest film, but it would have been far more affecting if it felt more true to life.
  20. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    60
    A sentimental, feel-good look at a family in mourning, but Jake Gyllenhaal rises above the clichéd script with a brilliantly creative performance.
  21. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Mark Holcomb
    60
    All the shell-shocked wryness, irredeemable remorse, and unaccountable will to survive that the movie attempts to embody are realized in Gyllenhaal, and the actor makes it possible to root for Moonlight Mile despite its flaws.
  22. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    60
    What's on screen is too honest and from the heart to totally dismiss but too slick and contrived to completely embrace. This is a film that cares about genuine emotion but also wants to tame it, to tidy it up and keep it confined to quarters.
  23. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Jean Oppenheimer
    60
    The film takes an incredibly wrong turn when it shifts to the courtroom trial -- It all but kills any goodwill Silberling has engendered up to this point.
    All this critic's reviews
  24. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    58
    In ''Ordinary People,'' at least one character -- Mary Tyler Moore's -- had to fall so that the others could survive. In Moonlight Mile, no one gets shut out of the hug cycle.
  25. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    58
    In his determination to lighten the heavy subject matter, Silberling also, to a certain extent, trivializes the movie with too many nervous gags and pratfalls: to the point where his heartfelt drama comes perilously close to tasteless comedy.
  26. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    50
    A movie about grief for people who don't want to be upset too badly. It's a half-a-hankie tearjerker, a meek, polite weepie.
  27. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Curiel
    50
    Too predictable and too self-conscious to reach a level of high drama.
  28. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    50
    Moonlight Mile leavens the mood occasionally, but it cheapens things by insisting that everybody onscreen and in the audience leavethe theater smiling.
    All this critic's reviews
  29. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    50
    A movie at war with itself -- tuned into its characters' vicissitudes one moment, stumbling with awkward stabs at goofiness the next.
  30. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    50
    Eloquent acting -- in fits and starts -- can't make up for the movie's glib, off-putting calculations.
    All this critic's reviews
  31. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    Silberling has the nerve to play it for laughs -- This is clearly an actor's movie, but only Sarandon and Holly Hunter (as the attorney prosecuting the murderer) rise to the occasion.
  32. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    38
    An insult to anyone who has tragically and unexpectedly lost a loved-one in a similar manner.
  33. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    This movie has promising ingredients. But you'll leave wanting much, much more.
  34. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    10
    I'm at a loss to account for how OFF this film is -- how a movie can seem so conscientiously earnest yet so creepily exploitive. It's like a Christmas stocking over a crematory.
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