Pumpkin

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Is alive, and takes chances, and uses the wicked blade of satire in order to show up the complacent political correctness of other movies in its campus genre.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

I laughed harder at Pumpkin than at any other film I've seen this year -- but be warned: This dark campus comedy is not for all tastes, or probably even most tastes.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Pumpkin's two greatest strengths: the majority of the film is original and engaging, and Christina Ricci turns in another fine performance. This pair of assets alone is worth the price of admission.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

For all its brilliantly brazen sequences and energetic supporting players (as the young lovers' mothers, Brenda Blethyn and Lisa Banes are terrific), Pumpkin's abrupt shifts of mood and needlessly complicated ending(s) render its latter third a bit of a chore.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

An odd and oddly endearing romantic black comedy.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Fitfully daring, Pumpkin isn't quite sure what it's about -- the tone bounces between thudding satire and toothless camp parody -- but it's definitely a bad-mannered child of our times.

Chicago Tribune Chris Jones

Wildly uneven but nonetheless intriguing and funny.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

It rebounds in the last moments and I thought successfully blended satire, high camp and yet another sexual taboo into a really funny movie.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Broder's script makes the weird transition from satire to camp as if there were no distinction between the two. It's a bracing if at times bewildering experience.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The filmmakers try to balance pointed, often incisive satire and unabashed sweetness, with results that are sometimes bracing, sometimes baffling and quite often, and in unexpected ways, touching.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Combining the fairy-tale idealism of "Edward Scissorhands" with "Hairspray's" devilish sarcasm, the directors try for the sincerity of a message movie while affecting the hip facade of satirists.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

As PC busting goes, this first feature directed by Tony R. Abrams and scribe Adam Larson Broder shoots at close range, and there's something endearing about the way the filmmakers fire away so eagerly at such fluorescent-colored targets.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

After a lively start -- the sorority sisters, shaken by the slightest imperfection in themselves, cannot cope with handicapped athletes -- the film smooths its rough edges and reduces complex characters to sitcom stooges. Call it an opportunity missed.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film doesn't seem to know how it feels, much less how others are supposed to feel about it.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Jas some nice moments, a great soundtrack and some wonderful works by the dark-even-while-light Ricci.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Off sorority row, the movie goes flat for increasingly long stretches, with the filmmakers displaying so little understanding of or genuine feeling for the mentally challenged that they never advance past stutter-and-stumble humor.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The result is hit or miss, with a laugh here and there, ultimately creating an aura of hopeless and drawn-out improbability.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There's the shell of not one but two excellent films in Pumpkin, but as it is the one we have here is just too bewildering to puzzle out.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The satire is broad and easy, while the romance is thoroughly unconvincing.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Begins as though the filmmakers imagine that they're making a daringly anti-p.c. serio-comedy, but long before it's over, the picture is wearing its bleeding liberal heart all over its sleeve.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

In its own dimly reckless way, the film is riveting -- not unlike watching a tightrope walker with a bad case of vertigo.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Witless, insulting satire of sorority girls that shamelessly ridicules the mentally challenged. The filmmakers aren't exactly Mensa candidates themselves.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A brain and a heart, two things that, along with a good story, believable characters and anything resembling style or flair, Pumpkin is fatally missing.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An amazing film amazingly tasteless, tin-eared and awkward, but amazing all the same. Anyone with a predilection for bad movies might want to see it, if only in an inspecting-the-wreckage spirit, since because movies this misguided come but once or twice a year.