Metascore
56 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 30
  2. Negative: 6 out of 30
  1. Traveling from the tragic to the comic, this multifaceted film is richly acted and imaginatively directed.
  2. 100
    A brilliant film--vivid, haunting, intelligent and in good taste, wonderfully acted, wonderfully written and directed.
  3. Thoughtfulness and artistry ...raise this small, quiet picture to moments of pure epiphany.
  4. 83
    It's a lovely film that suffers from an overdetermined structure and a reliance on a sensationalized plot line that, quixotically, is ignored for long periods of time.
  5. If you can forgive some plot artifice and gloss, there's a seductively intuitive and resonant theme resting at the core of Jeremy Podeswa's haunting new film.
  6. The story didn't fully answer all my queries about the characters, but did such a nice job of keeping me interested that I wound up appreciating the mysteries that remained.
  7. 75
    A story like Five Senses sounds like a gimmick, but Podeswa has a light touch when dealing with the senses and a sure one when telling his stories.
  8. A lot more than the sum of its delicately balanced parts.
  9. Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    75
    The five stories in The Five Senses flawlessly and even artfully create a unified mood.
  10. Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    75
    A deft, elegant, melancholy tapestry of flawed outreach, and the big reason it succeeds is Podeswa's courage in dispensing with a lot of exposition and trusting the audience - and the faces of the actors - to fill a lot of what otherwise would be gaps.
  11. An elegant, deliberate film about loneliness and hope, connection and loss.
  12. Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    70
    Manages to make its point--that we are all impaired, short on that rarest quality, common sense--without being imprisoned by its complex format.
  13. Narratively club-footed but directorially assured.
  14. Pseudo art can be fun, though, even if it doesn't quite awaken all your senses.
  15. Most of the film is so purposefully bound by its construct that it feels more like a creative-writing project (sure, give it an A) than a movie (B-).
  16. It is a gimmick, rather than an idea worth exploring.
  17. 60
    Beautifully performed and filmed, but tiresomely schematic episodes like this one cause us to experience major sensory deprivation.
  18. Our senses may be the stuff of drama, but not when they're treated as nice and neat as this.
  19. 50
    It manages just to be pleasant.
  20. Particularly anticlimactic - the film itself seems sprung from molting yuppie catalogs.
  21. The Five Senses, despite its good performances, is like looking through a filmmaker's sketchbook: strong outlines but little substance.
  22. 40
    Comes so freighted with tragedy and sensitivity that I left dreaming of converting the abject misery of one and all to everyday unhappiness with free drinks and a raucous sing-along down at the pub.
  23. Don't expect to be wowed by a vast spectrum of delicacies, as the buffet here is composed of entirely obvious ingredients.
  24. Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    40
    It's like one of the baker's cakes, handsomely rendered on the outside but lacking flavor.
  25. Fake-sounding dialogue, some over-deliberate performances and five amazingly trite linked stories.
  26. 38
    There's less here than meets the eye, not to mention the ear, nose, tongue and fingertip.
  27. Reviewed by: Steve Simels
    30
    A self-consciously arty ensemble piece that's alternately exploitative, implausible and cliche ridden.
  28. Beautifully shot and littered with disquieting character business, the film is hog-tied by its own bad Big Idea.
  29. Reviewed by: Gemma Files
    30
    It's all quite precious, just not in a good way: "Postmodern" to a fault, deeply shallow, infuriatingly trite.
  30. 30
    By interweaving several stories, the movie suffers from a peculiar multiplier effect: it deepens its shallowness.