| 85 |
Mr. Showbiz
The most poignant (if hard-hitting) depiction of childhood to show up this year.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Indeed, one of the nicest things about this jewel of a film is that there isn't much of a story at all -- just a handful of delicately drawn characters moving through life that is at once familiar and yet slightly elevated by a director who loves the good in people more than the bad.
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
An assured, graceful instance of effective screen storytelling, and Meadows draws splendid performances from his cast, especially from the young Shim and Marshall.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
By turns amusing, touching and horrifying, A Room For Romeo Brass is a film that defies expectation at every turn.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Loren King
Offers an honest, understated and unsentimental look at a small incident in the course of a friendship - but it is the kind of incident that defines most childhoods.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A quirky little film with an offbeat trajectory that rattles through the bones of story with eyes open to the texture of experience and the dimensions of character.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Effortless in the way it insinuates itself into these families, touching in the way it shows how fiercely Romeo and Knocks are, despite everything, their own little men.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
A sense of authenticity overshadows any contrivance in this subtly classic drama.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
It is essentially a personal reminiscence of daily life that captures with an astonishing precision exactly what it felt to be a 12-year- old boy growing up in a particular time and place.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
Proceeds with an episodic pace, full of narrative twists and turns that clearly are not pretested by a Hollywood committee. Things feel sort of strange and original all at once.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
A bitter, black and oddly beautiful story.
|
| 70 |
Village Voice
So low-key it could be mistaken for a throwaway. But Meadows's understanding of childhood fears and fantasies and the yearning, heartfelt performances he draws from his two young actors should not be underestimated.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
Meadows is very good with the boys' relationship, and achieves his and Fraser's central goal of showing how childhood bonds can be simultaneously fragile and strong.
|
| 60 |
Variety
An easygoing kitchen-sink comedy with an unsettling final act.
|
| 50 |
New York Post
Fairly shapeless story.
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
More and more independent filmmakers seem to be cobbling together characters and scenes that have surface hook and flash without organic emotional logic.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
A kitchen-sink realist coming-of-age story in the venerable British tradition, with all the good and bad that entails.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Goes downhill fast.
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