| 100 |
Austin Chronicle
It’s a movie made of moments, the antithesis of "plot-driven," but the sum of these moments is magnificent, the culmination of so many elements: acting, scripting, score (by locals Michael Linnen and David Wingo), and cinematography.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
David Gordon Green's second film, is too subtle and perceptive, and knows too much about human nature, to treat their lack of sexual synchronicity as if it supplies a plot.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
It's thrillingly original, lyrical, and wise, and the filmmaker conveys the mutable intensity of young love with the authoritative originality of an important filmmaker.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
The movie may take five extra minutes to end and could do with one less sunset but . . . other than that it's damned near perfect.
|
| 90 |
Chicago Reader
Staff (not credited)
This is a lyrical heartbreaker that skirts most love-story cliches and is brave enough to be as inconclusive as the characters.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Remarkable for its genuine, unpretentious lyricism.
|
| 90 |
Newsweek
The best movie of the last 20 years about young people in love is 1989’s.
|
| 90 |
Time
Green shoots his groping lovers in the art-film style -- long takes, static frame -- but his tone isn't at all minimalist; it's achingly, breathtakingly romantic, like the old Hollywood love stories his kids have never seen.
|
| 90 |
Wall Street Journal
Like his (David Gordon Green's) debut feature of three years ago, the exquisite "George Washington," this new one has my heart, and I think it will have yours.
|
| 88 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The verdict? Green passes with flying colours -- his is a huge and hugely impressive talent.
|
| 80 |
The New Republic
Green treats his people with affectionate knowledge, untinged with patronizing. And he sees them in ways that are free of cinematic cliché.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
It's a movie of deft impressions and telling human moments. Whether or not those impressions and moments add up to anything is almost beside the point.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
The performers are tremendous, particularly Deschanel, who can travel to the end of an emotional tether and then suggest the mysteries of change and growth that lie beyond.
|
| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
Wandering, atmospheric, episodic yet strangely appealing story of love.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Girls isn't fabulous, but you do feel its characters really have connected.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Precious without ever being cloying, All the Real Girls is a wise, delicate and immensely touching romance.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Smartly acted, achingly simple love story.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Megan Lehmann
It's the little things that resonate in this tender and sincere tale of first love.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
Slow moving and low key, and, when the final credits roll, you feel like you have spent nearly two hours in the company of a few real people, not constructs of a writer's imagination.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Green unquestionably has a rare, intermittent knack for rapture.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
A small movie about big emotions, with Green capturing the rush of love and sting of heartbreak with great vividness.
|
| 70 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Deschanel and Schneider--who both give rich, funny performances--and everyone around them have inner lives that don't always translate into words. When they speak, it's usually in dialogue halfway between poetry and inarticulate fumbling.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
Green is essentially a poet of moods rather than a teller of tales, and he adorns the movie with stylistic touches influenced by Terrence Malick.
|
| 70 |
Slate
The movie is very beautiful, with a shambling pace and slow fade-ins and fade-outs; and when it works there's a tension between its characters' scuffling small-talk and its majestically ruined rural setting.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
It's a sad love story that's insightful at its core and indulgent around the edges, a film whose instincts are impeccable when focusing on that romance but less than compelling when it wanders elsewhere.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Lurches toward an offbeat honesty but it also very nearly crashes in its quirkiness.
|
| 60 |
Salon.com
The sad thing about All the Real Girls is that Green seems more in love with his perceived unconventionality than he does with his characters. If that's not a town without pity, I don't know what is.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
The central relationship here is curious but not engaging, except for the pleasure of watching Deschanel, making All the Real Girls just a filmmaker's exercise in impressionistic style and mood.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
This earnest love story is borderline insufferable, and yet there are moments that, in their bold incoherence, have a startling emotional truth.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Director David Gordon Green has created some fresh, penetrating, beautifully drawn scenes of one-on-one intimacy…But some of what surrounds these interludes is variously misguided, fuzzy and borderline pretentious.
|
| 50 |
New York Magazine
There’s a ravishing aliveness to the spacious imagery; at least the clichés have room to roam free.
|
| 50 |
Film Threat
Aspires to a backwoods North Carolina Woody Allen quality that it often comes close to achieving. But sadly it’s just never quite funny, touching or insightful enough.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The main characters are unremarkable, and most of the acting is dull.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
The always charming Deschanel manages to rise above most of the film's logy pretensions, but the usually excellent Clarkson isn't so lucky.
|
| 40 |
The New Yorker
Sadly, the men here come across as whiny and infantile, and Green is dangerously keen to stress their retardation. [17 & 24 2003, p.204]
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