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Gray Matters
Yari Film Group Releasing
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some mature thematic material, sexual content and language
Starring
Heather Graham,
Thomas Cavanagh,
Bridget Moynahan,
Molly Shannon,
Alan Cumming,
Sissy Spacek,
and
Rachel Shelley
A romantic comedy about a brother, a sister and the girl of their dreams. (Yari Film Group)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Sue Kramer
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Sue Kramer
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 19, 2007
Theatrical: February 23, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
96 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
60
The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck
While Kramer's well-conceived screenplay features much amusing dialogue, there's a forced quality to the proceedings that makes the comic premise seem more artificial than it needs to be.
50
Variety
Ronnie Scheib
Scripter/helmer Sue Kramer's awkward freshman outing eventually coasts on the genuine charm of its leads. A strong vehicle for Heather Graham, who has never looked lovelier, "Gray" scores most convincingly in its reinvention of Carole Lombardian sexual screwiness as head-spinning gender confusion.
50
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Compared to Gray Matters, even a Nora Ephron bonbon has the weight of urban neo-realism.
50
TV Guide
Angel Cohn
The only bright spots are Cavanagh's easy charm about him and Cumming's performance as Grody -- he's much more believable as a straight man than Graham is as a gay woman.
50
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
This exhausting romance feels more like a long-lost episode of "Three's Company" in which Jack Tripper decides he is actually gay.
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Some of it works, most of it doesn't. But the real problem of the movie is that it's so utterly lacking in freshness and originality. This is exactly the kind of formulaic indie gay comedy that was so overdone in the '80s and '90s that it became a film festival cliché.
50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Mildly diverting but slight, the screwball comedy Gray Matters changes it up, more or less creating its own genre, the curveball farce.
42
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Far from a watershed moment for lesbian coming-out films, Gray Matters has a queer sensibility that's several miles south of "Will & Grace."
42
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Graham makes the coming-out dithering bearable, but not before she has jumped through hoops of contrivance.
40
Los Angeles Times
Sam Adams
Kramer shows zero feeling for the nuances of a midlife sexual awakening.
40
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Unfortunately, the film, written and directed by Sue Kramer, starts with a distinctly uncomfortable moral baseline: How exactly is any audience supposed to identify with a character whose relationship with her brother borders on the incestuous?
38
Miami Herald
Peter Debruge
For all of 10 minutes, Gray Matters looks like it might have accomplished the impossible: uncovering a romantic-comedy scenario audiences haven't seen a million times before.
25
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
Nothing shakes this pathetic attempt at humor from its self-satisfied torpor.
25
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Watching Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh and a stridently adorable Alan Cumming do their wide-eyed, moony thing in the romantic comedy Gray Matters raises the question: Is it possible for a filmgoer to be twinkled to death?
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Every once in a while you catch glimpses of originality and see what Gray Matters might have been if it hadn't gone soft and safe.
25
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Graham was good in films such as "Boogie Nights" and "Bowfinger" where her apparent innocence was a smoke screen for her lustful connivance. To be effective in the movies, she needs something to counteract her wholesomeness.
20
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The dearth of ideas is exemplified at the end by a Mary Tyler Moore freeze-frame of Graham leaping in the air.
12
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
There isn't a remotely believable moment in the script here, and Kramer's leaden direction only helps strand a capable cast headed by Heather Graham in an hour and a half of virtual laugh-free tedium.
10
Village Voice
Michelle Orange
Coming from the strangely vacuous Graham, in a Manhattan this preposterous, the staid social message is as ludicrous as its surroundings.
 The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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