| 90 |
Washington Post
A quirky, tender, splendidly acted fable.
|
| 90 |
TNT RoughCut
Spencer Abbott
Allen's deadpan humor shines through every crevice of the film, keeping the pacing sharp, the dialogue snappy, and the situations feeling real.
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
(Penn)'s is a lovely, soulful performance in a movie that manages to imbue tragedy with just the right grace note of insouciance -- a movie worthy of Woody Allen himself.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Sean Penn('s) performances are master classes in the art of character development.
|
| 88 |
Miami Herald
Phoebe Flowers
Penn's performance is easily the best ever seen in an Allen film.
|
| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Amazing as Penn is, Morton is his equal, creating a complete personality out of gestures, glances and unadorned bits of actorly business.
|
| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly
Allen draws a snappy, loose-limbed performance from Penn.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Still about as good as Allen gets, a persuasive, nuanced, and relatively graceful portrait of an egotistical yet talented jazz guitarist of the swing era, astutely played by Sean Penn.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
This is one very tuneful labor of love.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
Undeniably pleasant, but British actress Samantha Morton quietly explodes it: Her performance is like nothing I've seen in recent years.
|
| 80 |
Time
Samantha Morton, as Emmet's "mute orphan half-wit" of a girlfriend, is the sweet revelation. Rarely has a performer mined such complex and potent emotion from such simple materials: a smile, a shrug, an attentive winsomeness.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Funny and light, all the more potent for seeming so effortless.
|
| 80 |
Slate
Unexpectedly delectable.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Penn's performance is the movie's ultimate grace note. As funny and ingenious as Allen's films can get, they are rarely known for depth of character.
|
| 80 |
Dallas Observer
It is engaging, touching, and frequently funny. Maybe because his hero is inarticulate and his heroine is mute, Allen relies far more than usual on physical comedy than on the verbal jokes that are his strongest comic suit.
|
| 80 |
Variety
David Stratton
The almost wall-to-wall music is glorious, with solo guitarist Howard Alden doing a sock job. Penn, incidentally, utterly convinces in the scenes in which he's seen "playing" the guitar.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
A literate, sophisticated comedy whose humor and loss and hope linger in our hearts, like the jazz music it reveres, both sweet and lowdown.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Isn't Allen's finest work by a long shot, but an undeniable part of its fascination is trying to figure out what -- if anything, even unconsciously -- he's trying to say about how he treated Farrow.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Exquisitely designed, lovingly executed, beautifully scored and played, every hair and note in place, it's a movie full of irony, passion and bluesy riffs.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The best reason in years to reconsider (Woody Allen).
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Penn hasn't attempted much comedy since "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," but he's masterful here.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
Doesn't add up to any big deal. But it's a likable, lively little ditty -- one theme, some clever variations -- that never wears out its welcome.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
It's a loving and comic tribute to a musical era Allen knows well.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A real showcase for Penn, who seems to positively delight in playing a slimy, hateful character that most stars would not go near.
|
| 65 |
Mr. Showbiz
A vapor trail of a comedy, comfortable as an old chair (and deliciously photographed in shades of melon and banana by Chinese vet Zhao Fei), but ultimately quaint and unchallenging.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
Agreeable eye candy and ear candy, but it's too slight to reach as deep as it thinks it wants to reach.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
Woody Allen's questionable toe-tapping faux-documentary.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Affectionate, melancholy and anchored by a well thought-out performance from Sean Penn.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
It's all very slight and only sporadically amusing, and it makes Allen's "Celebrity" from last year look even more underrated than it already is.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Penn's excellent acting doesn't raise his character above the level of familiar clichés about woman-chasing jazzmen.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
It's the prettiest movie of the year, maybe of Allen's career.
|
| 40 |
Film.com
But the movie is so confused about where it wants to go, it suffers from the same identity crisis as its protagonist.
|
| 30 |
Film.com
A dud. Neither sweet nor low-down enough by half.
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