Accidental Tourist, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I've never seen a movie so sad in which there was so much genuine laughter. The Accidental Tourist is one of the best films of the year.

Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson

Irresistibly funny… Just about the best holiday gift imaginable. [23 Dec 1988, Calendar, p.6-1]

USA Today Mike Clark

The chief delight is Kasdan. “Body Heat” was appropriately slick, but “The Big Chill” and “Silverado” too much so. Tourist is edgier - also the work of a genuine craftsman. Frankly, I didn't think Kasdan had it in him. [23 Dec 1988, Life, p.1D]

TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)

Hurt's performance is remarkably assured, and Davis beautifully captures her character's insouciance. Less than perfect is Turner, whose capable performance presents a figure somewhat hollow at the center.

Variety Staff (Not Credited)

Slow, sonorous and largely satisfying.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

The film's frequent longeurs, compulsive over-explicitness and unshakably morose hero seem like so many insistently ''literary'' qualities, ostentatiously laid over a cute, cartoonish vision that suggests not so much Anne Tyler as the affectionate quirkiness of ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show.'' [6 Jan 1989, Friday, p.A]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Hurt's character is so inert and unemotional that some spectators may find it difficult to stay interested in him.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The Accidental Tourist often relies on Miss Tyler's methods without tempering them, and gives a tone of crashing obviousness to material that need not have seemed that way. [23 Dec 1988, p.C12]

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The message of the film is that life isn't neat and predictable like a well-arranged business trip; yet everything in the picture is so calculated that there's no life to it. [23 Dec 1988, A& L, p.19]

Time Richard Schickel

In the end, everything about this glum and self-important adaptation of Anne Tyler's upper-cute novel is dim. [26 Dec 1988, p.83]

San Francisco Chronicle Judy Stone

It's a ho-hum-er, almost a complete bummer. [6 Jan 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

The New Yorker Pauline Kael

I found Tourist hell to sit through. [23 Jan 1989]