Shrink

USA Today Claudia Puig

Grief and suicide seem unlikely subjects for a comedy. But Shrink tries gamely to mine edgy humor from the darkest places. Sometimes it works. Other times, its Hollywood-centric focus feels like a re-heated cinemash of "The Wackness," "Crash" and "The Player."

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Kevin Spacey brings another of his cynical, bitter characters to life -- very smart, and fresh out of hope -- but the movie doesn't give him much of anywhere to take it.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Shrink offers a roster of wonderfully eccentric characterizations, shoehorned into a dramatic structure that's just a little too formulaic.

Variety John Anderson

The film may be too inside-baseball, with strained sympathy and contrived emotions.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

You do wish Pate and writer Thomas Moffett had gone for more wit given the outlandishness of the melodrama since it would be more fun to laugh at this than take it seriously.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

These characters are mostly too sketchy and their connections too contrived for Shrink to jell as an incisive ensemble piece.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Starts promisingly, but Jonas Pate directs his fine cast straight into a swamp of schmaltz as every loose thread of plot gets patly resolved.

Washington Post Philip Kennicott

Shrink is no worse than the average Hollywood comedy. But it shows, more obviously than most, the bankruptcy of standard-issue American pop narrative, circa 2009.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Michael Posner

No one knows why bad things happen to good people. But we do know why bad things happen to good film ideas. They get ruined by poor scripts and indifferent direction. The evidence desemaine– Shrink.

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

The plot relies heavily on pat betrayal, forced coincidences - and the sort of closure that lands, with a thud, in a tidy package of cliches. Yet some of the humor is delicious.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The script of Shrink, written by Thomas Moffett, plays like "Crash" without the angst or the perpetual racial conflagrations.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Shrink is exactly like virtually all his (Spacey) post-"American Beauty" vehicles: flashy, phony, nakedly melodramatic, and full of big actorly moments disconnected from real life.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It wants to be "Good Will Hunting" set in the land of "Entourage," but its bummed-out touchy-feeliness is every bit as concocted as its overly jaded showbiz corruption.

Village Voice Vadim Rizov

Pate's eye isn't bad, but Thomas Moffett's screenplay is self-serious piffle.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Spacey is the film's primary draw, but the cast is uniformly solid -- a crucial asset when the screenplay and direction are not.

Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

Ironically for a film revolving around psychotherapy, Shrink doesn't stand up to analysis.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A well-chosen cast props up this otherwise shallow story.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A pity-party of Hollywood narcissism.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The more Shrink tries to get you invested in the emotional turmoil of its characters, the more you want to reach into the screen and shake them and tell them to get over themselves.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

This movie brings to mind much better cable TV shows like the marijuana comedy "Weeds,’" the one-on-one psychodramas of "In Treatment," and the astonishingly cinematic "Breaking Bad."

Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen

Director Jonas Pate should be run through a wood chipper for daring to quote "Fargo."