The Details
Metascore
56 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 13
  3. Negative: 3 out of 13
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Nov 9, 2012
    100
    The Details has a light tone, but it's anything but light in purpose. It's committed and passionate, one of the most perceptive and morally persuasive movies of 2012.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    Nov 1, 2012
    75
    Tobey Maguire's characteristic placidity makes a fine mask for a man who is thoroughly awful.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Gary Goldstein
    Nov 2, 2012
    70
    It all adds up to create a dicey morality tale that's as improbable as it is strangely believable.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    Nov 1, 2012
    70
    Instead of turning soft and squishy, this examination of karma gets tougher as it goes along. Its refusal to settle into a cozy niche may be commercially disastrous, but I take it as a sign of integrity.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Alan Scherstuhl
    Nov 1, 2012
    70
    Top-shelf cast, headed by Tobey Maguire, slips into familiar grooves of adultery, lies, blackmail, and pet poisoning, it's the spectacular blow-ups and dressing-downs that make this such a nervy pleasure.
  6. NPR
    Reviewed by: Joel Arnold
    Nov 1, 2012
    65
    In The Details' finest moments, writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes exerts a precise control over tone using sound and performance; in its worst moments, the score and actors overcompensate for weak material. Those elements let Estes get away with often-indulgent writing, throwing up whole scenes that don't add texture or conflict.
  7. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Mark Feeney
    Nov 1, 2012
    63
    Manages to be both compelling and unsatisfying. But what limits it isn't lack of execution. The movie is many things, but a mess isn't one of them. Estes knows exactly what he wants. Whether it's worth wanting is another matter.
  8. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Cory Everett
    Oct 30, 2012
    58
    Described as an "existential horror film," The Details can't quite reach the same level of excellence as The Coen Brothers' recent "A Serious Man," another film about a man being punished (or rewarded) by fate based on his actions.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    Oct 31, 2012
    50
    The lone standout is Linney's performance as the deranged neighbor, whose erratic combination of sexual desperation and extreme vulnerability keeps the film on life support.
  10. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Matt Singer
    Oct 31, 2012
    40
    If only writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes had bothered to dig a little bit deeper than those damn raccoons did.
  11. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Oct 30, 2012
    33
    It's a familiar mold: the perils of suburban discontent have been so thoroughly explored that The Details plays like a hodgepodge of familiar circumstances on an assembly line to disaster.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    Nov 1, 2012
    25
    Cancels itself out by being too campy to take seriously and too tragic to laugh at.
  13. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Andrew Schenker
    Oct 28, 2012
    25
    The Details is as smug and self-satisfied as its privileged lead character.

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  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. uditrpanchal
    10
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