| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
At a time when crassness and dumbing down pervade popular entertainment, especially movies aimed at youthful audiences, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen dares to be smart.
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| 58 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Only Carol Kane, hilarious in roller curls and wide tortoiseshell glasses, gets to sink her teeth into her role. At least for Lohan, "Confessions" is her stepping-off point. Now she has to find a film to be her "real" stage.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
A safely sanitized comedy with an important message about loyalty and individuality, plays to Lohan's strengths and gives the target audience a chance to live it up vicariously.
|
| 50 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Girls ages 6-14 will get a charge from the fashion show, animation effects and, to a lesser degree, the cartoonish antics. But like most adolescent histrionics, the pic's impact on adults will be limited to mild amusement alternating with annoyance.
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| 50 |
The New York Times
Modest, mildly engaging film.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
A pretty little package whose perfect, fairy-tale ending is just a little too neat, the film's colorful wrapping includes veteran actress Carol Kane's bizarre but enjoyable performance as the school's uptight drama teacher.
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| 50 |
USA Today
This junior chick flick merely reinforces superficial clichés one associates with female teens: petty fights, intense highs and lows, and self-absorption.
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| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
With no Jamie Lee Curtis as a volleying partner, though, Lohan's chipper energy is, like, so totally out of proportion given the colorless pliability of everyone around her.
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| 40 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Doesn't have a mean bone in its body, but it's so sloppily assembled that even Lohan's charm can't keep it together.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
A smart script by Gail Parent (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) boosts the first half of this comedy.
|
| 40 |
Empire
Nick De Semlyen
Lola deserves detention; Lohan deserves better.
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| 40 |
LA Weekly
Welsh director Sara Sugarman and the great cinematographer Stephen Burum (Hoffa, The Untouchables) keep the visuals bouncing along in bright, primary-color-intensive fashion, but the movie has no real heart and even less soul.
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| 40 |
Dallas Observer
Tethered to screenwriter Gail Parent's adaptation of Dyan Sheldon's novel, plus the demands of bigwig producers, it's a testament to Sugarman's artistry that she sustains her funky playfulness--a hallmark of her earlier work--throughout most of this film.
|
| 40 |
Variety
Minimally funny comedy feels like a Disney Channel pic that got boosted to theatrical after Lohan scored a hit opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in the "Freaky Friday" remake.
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| 38 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
I confess to a deep uncertainty about whether this can be rightly called a movie. A bunch of scenes, maybe... I confess to a cynical belief that Lola isn't actually a role but just a succession of costume changes.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Even by Disney's formulaic standards -- is about as cut and dried as the phone book.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
It's a silly, giggly piece of pink-colored fluff, as hyperactive as its heroine and as redolent of bubble gum and Love's Baby Soft cologne as Lola apparently is. Yet the superficial sweetness masks something rotten.
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| 30 |
Village Voice
Anya Kamenetz
Smug, sanitized fantasy.
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| 30 |
Austin Chronicle
Another casualty of the uncomfortable branding so common to the teen genre, the same branding one sees in a film starring Hilary Duff, or Amanda Bynes, or the next sweet but bland blond actress that comes down the assembly line.
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| 25 |
New York Post
Shlocky, sloppy and crass adolescent comedy.
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| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The movie [Sugarman] made gives little indication that she understands teen girls, dramatic or plain. Much of Confessions seems clueless and -- even worse for moviegoers of any age -- listless.
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| 25 |
Chicago Tribune
It breaks director Billy Wilder's most important movie commandment: Thou Shall Not Bore. It's just not funny.
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| 12 |
Boston Globe
Every ounce of the film feels artificially upbeat.
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