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No Such Thing
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Metascore
36 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 21 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 11 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Robert John Burke, Sarah Polley
  • Summary: Writer-Director Hal Hartley takes a humorous and satirical look at a society concerned only with instant gratification and voyeuristic sensationalism. (MGM)

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 21
  3. Negative: 6 out of 21
  1. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    70
    The movie is not exactly an upper, but Hartley fans won't want to miss the latest creation of this consistently intelligent director.
  2. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    60
    May be far from perfect, but those small, odd Hartley touches help you warm to it.
  3. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    38
    The film's pace is just plain wacky, moving with the haste of a receding glacier most of the time, but then jumping ahead as if Hartley hit the gas on a time machine.

See all 21 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 9
  3. Negative: 4 out of 9
  1. ChadS.
    5
    When Beatrice(Sarah Polley) encounters The Monster(Robert John Burke), "No Such Thing" starts to bear a faint resemblance to "King Kong"(maybe this is a retelling from the avant-garde perspective). If the ape was in a play, he'd be mumbling solioquies, too. As The Monster expresses his loneliness and despair to Beatrice(who is there to search for her fiance), it occured to me that this might be a literal translation of Kong's roaring(maybe Kong was in anguish about being the last of his kind, too). Like the RKO film, a woman is delivered to the beast as a peace offering by the natives(and also, the woman reaches her destination by boat, albeit by a more convoluted manner). For most viewers, "No Such Thing" goes off the rails when Beatrice returns home with The Monster; the change in tone(from sobering to bubbly) is abrupt and jarring to even the most adventurous cineaste. Inexplicably, Beatrice undergoes a personality change; she wears provocative clothing and jumps into bed too easily with strange men, which is a drastic change from the nice girl(bookish, chaste) image we previously had of her. This is a stretch, but let's consider that in "King Kong", the giant ape was the spectacle(he was put on exhibition by his captors); in "No Such Thing", the girl is put on display(Polley wears a push-up bra and dominatrix clothing). When the monster gets loose in the city, it's the people who do the pummeling. In the final scene of "No Such Thing"(the monster's death), there's another inversion of a "Kong" plotpoint; the giant ape who climbs the building and stands at the apex of New York City with Fay Wray(or Jessica Lange, or Naomi Watts) in his hand. This filmmaker made me realize for the first time that the giant ape was probably trying to commit suicide. Was this obvious to everybody but me? Kong wanted to die with his beloved prize, but he changed his mind and set the girl down. "No Such Thing" fails as an entertainment(and fails as art), but if you consider the filmmaker's oeuvre, attention must be paid to the madness(too much time is spent on Beatrice's rehab) because there just might be a method(or not).… Expand
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