| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A human-scale comedy that reaches across generations to tickle, connect and embrace.
|
| 80 |
New Times (L.A.)
As it stands, it's cute, occasionally poignant and outrageously implausible.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, especially Mr. Brooks, deliver outstanding performances in the first feature film to be directed by Ms. Lahti.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Offers something rare for a modern movie: an uncynical depiction of the redemptive power of human relationships.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
About reaching out, about seeing the other person, about having something to say and being able to listen. So what if the ending is in autopilot? At least it's a flight worth taking.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
While My First Mister has considerable charm, it suffers somewhat from comparison with "Ghost World."
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Risks seeming too earnestly therapeutic for its own good. But what makes My First Mister a successful feature directing debut for Lahti is the emotional veracity it summons.
|
| 70 |
Slate
It's a measure of Brooks' stature that he survives the self-sabotage and comes through with his most engaging performance in years.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
Christine Lahti, making her directorial debut, wrings good laughs and strong emotion throughout, largely through the performances.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
In its first two-thirds, My First Mister, which marks Christine Lahti's feature directorial debut, looks to be a winner. But it takes a disastrously wrong turn toward the end that all but destroys the good work that's come before.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
It's a real shame the film gets mushy at the end. The result is an all too conventional ending on a film that should have been much better.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
The harder this film tries to be quirky and edgy, the more it feels like a run-of-the mill TV movie.
|
| 50 |
Wall Street Journal
My First Mister, which was written by Jill Franklyn, watches Jennifer with lively interest, but rarely pierces the mysteries of her soul.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Sobieski manages to make Jennifer's inevitable transformation more than a little bittersweet. Apparently even clichés click sometimes.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
A bathetic TV-movie-type "learning experience" that provides about as much insight into teenagers as 40s westerns did into Indians--it's all in the costumes and customs.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
The splendid performance by Sobieski, who ends her long run as industry-mag buzz princess and arrives as a full-fledged star.
|
| 50 |
Film Threat
Lahti's feature directorial debut plays like a watered-down variation ("Ghost World") -- that is, until the final third, when the film not only deviates but flat out derails.
|
| 42 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By the film's interminable, unforgivably embarrassing third act it sinks in a sticky swamp of sentimentality.
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
Brooks guards the movie from overheating in a surfeit of warmedy.
|
| 40 |
Variety
Lahti's feature directorial debut walks an innocuous middle line between the story's maudlin possibilities and its meaningful potential.
|
| 38 |
New York Daily News
Drifts from goofy situation comedy to pop culture parody to a last-act load of sentiment that would sink a trash barge.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Although the movie has its moments, it's a tearjerker that jerks too hard.
|
| 30 |
TV Guide
One hundred and nine minutes of drama and not a single moment rings true.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A coming-of-age story that gets it all wrong.
|
| 20 |
Washington Post
The movie is fussy and organized rather than moving. It follows a pattern so precisely, it's as if Lahti thought points would be taken off if she colored outside the lines.
|
| 20 |
Village Voice
The best that can be said about director Christine Lahti's feature debut is that it doesn't fall into any ready category.
|
| 16 |
Portland Oregonian
Intelligent teens will hate this film, and adults will just be embarrassed.
|
