| 100 |
Slate
David Edelstein
The best American movie of the year. Has a subtext so powerful that it reaches out and pulls you under. Even when the surface is tranquil, you know in your guts what's at stake.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Beautiful, compassionate, articulate domestic drama.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
It's simply a quiet and heartbreaking look at the dynamics of one family. That's the beauty of it.
|
| 100 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
There may be bigger, costlier, weighter films this year. There's none lovelier.
|
| 100 |
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Satisfying in every respect, it's a piece of blue-collar chamber music, never treating the characters cheaply, allowing them a complex entwinement of emotions.
|
| 100 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A humanistic gem of a movie, with unforgettable performances from Linney and Ruffalo.
|
| 100 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
Few films have explored the complicated bonds of love and resentment between brother and sister with such delightful honesty.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It's rare to get a good movie about the touchy adult relationship of a sister and brother. Rarer still for the director to be more fascinated by the process than the outcome. This is one of the best movies of the year.
|
| 91 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A drama that embraces the ambiguities and contradictions of family ties and human nature in all its irrational glory.
|
| 91 |
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
It's a movie about having a sibling and all of the pain, joy, love and anxiety that that entails: a movie, in other words, for almost everyone.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Elizabeth Weitzman
It's a rare thrill -- in this cinematically hollow year.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Melancholy little gem of a movie.
|
| 90 |
Time
Richard Schickel
Maybe these lives are, objectively speaking, inconsequential. But they have a resonance that big, sappy "relationship" pictures ought to envy.
|
| 90 |
Variety
Emanuel Levy
A sensitive, intimate, enormously touching drama.
|
| 90 |
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
In this modest but brilliant little movie, we find ourselves immersed in life itself.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Peter Brunette
One of the best pictures I've seen all year. Funny, touching, even inspiring at times.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Staff [Not Credited]
The best drama you've seen about Anytown, USA, since "American Beauty."
|
| 88 |
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
One of the most rewarding and engaging movies of the year. Don't miss it.
|
| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
A small but moving film that gets the details right (life in a sleepy burg, sidewalk chats between old high school pals) and gets at the heart of human longing for family, for love.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Honest, poignant and very funny, full of memorable, moving moments.
|
| 85 |
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
It's the sum of things not spoken, things too painful to express, that's the heart of this quietly moving drama.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
(Linney and Ruffalo) are just beautiful enough, in fact, to be in the movies and still remain convincing as authentic folk, and their performances are tremendously moving.
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
With warm humor and perceptive writing, director Kenneth Lonergan displays a gift for creating realistic characters and a compelling story.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
Writer/director Lonergan succeeds at capturing eloquently the disappointments of growing up and growing old. But he isn't always successful at reining in the schmaltz.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Wittily written and deliciously acted, Lonergan's debut film is a clear cut above the average.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
It's a compassionate story about what makes people tick and what really matters.
|
| 70 |
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
A subtle and often surprising study of the relationship between damaged adult siblings, full of mordant humor and dramatic invention.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Beautifully acted, minutely observed story.
|
| 60 |
Village Voice
Amy Taubin
Seems like a TV movie. A well-written, sympathetically acted TV movie, to be sure, but so timid and clumsy in its deployment of picture, sound, and editing that you have to wonder if executive producer Martin Scorsese bothered to give notes.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Ronnie Scheib
Lonergan's validation of big-minded small-town life has been neatened up to the point of blandness.
|
| 50 |
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
Visually flat and uninteresting and too often feels like a (leisurely paced) filmed play.
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