The Best and the Brightest
Metascore
26 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 14
  3. Negative: 8 out of 14
view
per page
  1. Movieline
    Reviewed by: Michelle Orange
    Jun 23, 2011
    65
    The goof on New York's awful elite only gets grimmer and less viable as the film goes on.
  2. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Nick Schager
    Jun 21, 2011
    60
    The Best and the Brightest's sharp one-liners and strong cast, especially McDonald's gleefully lecherous performance as an unabashed Republican pervert, help make it a sturdy bit of subculture-tweaking silliness.
  3. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    Jun 23, 2011
    50
    Amusing at times but never more than a modest diversion, lacking the cleverness and imagination required to turn it into more than a one-joke movie.
  4. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    Jun 23, 2011
    50
    The farce withers away when it should be expanding.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Jun 24, 2011
    40
    Riding in to save almost every scene, though, are recent Tony Awards host Harris and the wild and woolly Sedaris, who goes too far, but in a good way. Shelov could learn from them.
  6. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Gary Goldstein
    Jun 23, 2011
    40
    Unfortunately, writer-director Josh Shelov's sendup of the Manhattan private school culture flies off its comic rails after an engaging start, never to land back on solid ground.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    Jun 24, 2011
    38
    Amy Sedaris, channeling her inner Frances McDormand as a hyper admissions coach, gets most of the laughs.
  8. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Eric Henderson
    Jun 22, 2011
    38
    Writer-director Josh Shelov (working with co-writer Michael Jaeger) is trolling in fertile, easy territory, but rather than mine the subject for what it's worth, he resorts to depressingly cheap mistaken-identity shenanigans and raunchy "he-milk" gags.
  9. Variety
    Reviewed by: Andrew Barker
    Jun 21, 2011
    30
    Offering a fitfully funny sitcom plot clumsily stretched to 90 minutes, then goosed with increasingly tiresome doses of smuttiness and political incorrectness, The Best and the Brightest is neither.
  10. Boxoffice Magazine
    Reviewed by: John P. McCarthy
    Jun 21, 2011
    30
    All you need to know about this low-budget farce is that Amy Sedaris costars (yippee!) and New York pol Anthony Weiner would feel right at home with the sexting subplot (eeeuw!).
  11. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Jun 24, 2011
    20
    Manages to be simultaneously offensive and bland.
  12. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Aaron Hillis
    Jun 21, 2011
    10
    Drearily shot with cheesy skyline pans, oppressively scored with Hallmark cutesiness, and oddly filled with filthy one-liners.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Jeannette Catsoulis
    Jun 24, 2011
    0
    If you are going to be this mean-spirited, you had better deliver the jokes, but the film's attacks on pretentious parents - not to mention put-downs of hardworking immigrants - consistently come off as more hateful than humorous.
  14. New York Observer
    Reviewed by: Rex Reed
    Jun 21, 2011
    0
    Cheap, preposterous and mind-bendingly dreadful.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
tbd

No user score yet- Awaiting 3 more ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 1 out of 1
  1. Myffubs
    1
    The Best and the Brightest certainly isn't deserving of its title. It lacks anything resembling goodness or intelligence. Its particularly foul sense of humor is at odds with the maturity level of anyone who might be drawn in by the promise of an interesting set-up. It's about a couple attempting to get their five-year-old into an excellent preschool, yet the humor suggests the movie is for people who really wouldn't put much emphasis on their child's education. The cultural elite is shown as stupid and morally bankrupt, but then, so are the protagonists. The actors don't seem to be acting, as the characters never feel like real people. If nothing else, they're almost always aware they're in front of a camera, either acting bizarrely inhuman or offering half-baked quips in order to amuse a theoretic audience. The Best and the Brightest is essentially sitcom-lite fluff that uses its nonrating to indulge in perversity. I call it perversity because some of the humor simply is dirty without the good grace of being funny. In fact, none of the humor is remotely funny. This is the sort of movie where the aforementioned five-year-old, the reason for the conflict at the center of the story, is reduced to "cute" reaction shots. That, and faux-intellectuals are wowed by sexually explicit instant-messenger logs. So at least viewers are offered the message that smart people are actually really stupid, too. What comfort for those who enjoy this movie.… Full Review »