The Good Night
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Metascore
49 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

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  • Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Martin Freeman, Penélope Cruz
  • Summary: In The Good Night, dreaming is believing, as Gary, a once successful musician, struggles with his career and an inert relationship with his girlfriend Dora. As his work as a commercial jingle writer spirals into even more degrading depths, his best friend and former band mate, Paul, seems to find success at every turn. Gary is depressed and dejected until he meets Anna. She is everything Gary wants sexually, artistically and intellectually--she is the girl of his dreams…literally. But Gary can only be with Anna in sleep which consequently sends him on a quest for more frequent slumber. With the help of a new age guru named Mel, Gary shuns reality for the comfort of his dreams even as the troubles of his waking life increase. (Yari Film Group)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 12
  3. Negative: 1 out of 12
  1. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    Jake Paltrow's comedy takes familiar male-angst material and turns it into a painful--but fun--string of jokes.
  2. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    58
    Either way, it's too pretentious--or not nearly pretentious enough.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    50
    There is a fine idea for a romantic comedy in Jake Paltrow's The Good Night but the writer-director, in his debut feature, never develops it much beyond the idea stage.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    38
    The movie's film-studentish navel-gazing wears thin long before its over.

See all 12 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 1 out of 3
  1. ChadS.
    6
    An orchestral version of "The Universal" is featured prominently in "The Good Night", which suggest that Gary(Martin Freeman) and Paul(Simon Pegg) played in a Britpop band akin to Blur. Granted, coming up with original music that favors comparably with the likes of "Wonderwall"(Oasis) and "Common People"(Pulp) is harder than knocking off the sound and vision of f*****' Wham(as "Music and Lyrics" did last year), but c'mon, give us something more than an album jacket on a wall. The film doesn't try very hard to convince us that these television advert composers were part of a successful midlevel English band. Instead of performing sad piano ballads, Gary should be writing rock songs in his lucid dreams. With a little more ambition, "The Good Night" could've been a loosely based biography on Stuart Adamson of Big Country, who ended his life in a Hawaiian Holiday Inn. We need to see what's haunting Gary. "The Good Night" needs to show us the sold-out arenas, his girlfriend Dora(Gwynneth Paltrow) in her former incarnation as a groupie, you know, the whole kit-and-kaboodle of rockdom as it was during the early-nineties.… Expand
  2. JayH.
    4
    I did not care for this movie. I thought it was pretentiously directed and written, uninvolving and poorly conceived. The acting is uneven. It's just not well done.… Expand
  3. LeahH
    0
    oh my god. that movie sucked sooooo bad. i was hating it after just two minutes. seriously, nothing happened during the entire movie. except when gary the douchbag got hit by a car, that part i really enjoyed, but he lived, which made the movie suck again. don't rent it. don't watch it. it will seriously waste an hour and a half of your life. it'll make you feel stupid. it sucked. don't watch it. ever.… Collapse

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