| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
Smart, funny and often viciously cruel, this is a romantic comedy for people who are too old to believe in fairyales but wise enough to accept a happy ending when that's what life gives them.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
Gene Siskel
A brash romantic comedy that has a serious purpose at its core.
|
| 90 |
TNT RoughCut
Graham Verdon
Nicholson is near-perfect as he slowly allows callous cruelty to give way to vulnerability in one of the most original, idiosynchratic roles of the year.
|
| 90 |
Chicago Reader
What Brooks manages to do with them as they struggle mightily to connect with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and basically truthful--a triumph for everyone involved.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
In As Good as It Gets, his (Brooks) mastery of the nuances of language and emotion has turned the most unlikely material into the best and funniest romantic comedy of the year.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
Nicholson, Hunt, and Kinnear will win you over as they turn the film into a valentine to New York's walking wounded.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
It's a case of actors and strong writing coming together, and it's uncommon in contemporary movies.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the film not only gets up on wobbly legs but learns to dance by the closing credits.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
As funny as it's got all year. Manipulative and calculating? Sure. Submit! Enjoy!
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Moira Macdonald
An actor's movie full of little pleasures, with a few unexpected sparks.
|
| 80 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Stephen Thompson
It all adds up to a compelling, deftly executed film that thoughtfully examines the actions and motivations that draw people together, directing their uneasy relationships.
|
| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
You'll laugh and cry at the film, but you'll bridle, too, at Brooks' clumsy technique.
|
| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The result takes the audience on a screwball odyssey that mixes engaging twists with off-putting turns -- often fun, always watchable, but never quite as good as it could be.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
There's so much good here, in the dialogue, the performances and the observation, that the movie succeeds at many moments even while pursuing its doomed grand design.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
The movie often verges on being too much; Brooks' supreme balancing act is to keep it all under control.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
Not a positive triumph, but it does bring a smile to the face and, perhaps in some cases, a tear to the eye.
|
| 70 |
Salon.com
Appreciate it instead as an exceedingly well-crafted fairy tale, alive with eccentric, overdrawn Dickensian characters and irresistibly wholehearted sentiment, and you'll enjoy perhaps the most accomplished and satisfying work of Brooks' career as a middlebrow entertainer.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Mary Brennan
It may be a very good, very Brooksian sitcom, but it's accomplished entirely with the broad strokes and resolutely flat surfaces of television.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Even as you question the central premise, Brooks makes you want to buy into it.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
A cute premise that, upon closer inspection, rings falser rather than truer. It's pretty good, but not nearly as good as Brooks gets.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
Wicked, but it works.
|
| 60 |
Mr. Showbiz
Billed cleverly as a comedy from the heart that goes for the throat. If only Brooks had had the guts to avoid the schmaltz.
|
| 60 |
Variety
A sporadically funny romantic comedy with all the dramatic plausibility and tonal consistency of a TV variety show.
|
| 60 |
Newsweek
As Good as It Gets works: by the end you'll no doubt be won over by its cranky hero. But for those of us who cherish the quirkily unformulaic Brooks of old, it's a tainted victory.
|
| 50 |
The New Republic
Nicholson, one of the best actors in American screen history, is miscast again… He is quite visibly uncomfortable in his role. It needed an actor who could easily be viciously stuffy, like William Hurt. Nicholson struggles for the core of the man but never gets it. [Feb. 2, 1998]
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Sandra Contreras
An overstatement. The movie's too long, and the direction is sometimes slack -- but the script is crammed with withering ripostes, ably delivered by Nicholson and Hunt.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Nicholson's over-the-top acting gives an entertaining edge to the plot's feel-good manipulations.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Dave Kehr
The material has no dramatic center, a problem pointed up by Brooks' failed solution to it -- his use of an ugly-cute little dog, Simon's pet.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
In between all the laughs and tears, it becomes painfully obvious that there's not a whole lot of story here to prop up the constant emotional yanking.
|
| 20 |
Dallas Observer
Michael Sragow
Experiencing this movie is a little like watching a manic-depressive's medication wear off.
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