Trixie

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

In a summer of cardboard figures in splashy spectacles, that makes for a refreshing change, an intriguing, entertaining and altogether sweetly mystifying misfire. In other words, another quintessentially Alan Rudolph picture.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Trixie has "cult favorite" written all over it. That is to say, the general public is likely to say ixnay.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

There are so many wonderful moments in Trixie and so few films like it that you wish Rudolph had given it a few more rewrites.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A cranky failure with brilliant moments.

Film.com Robert Horton

For me, Trixie finds its own peculiar groove, and-buoyed by a compulsively watchable actress-folds neatly into the off-center work of a distinctive American director.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

So much of the film is so funny, inspired and sophisticated, the performances so richly nuanced, that many viewers, Rudolph admirers in particular, will be inclined to forgive a little self-indulgence on the part of this authentic auteur.

USA Today Mike Clark

Eventually evolves into a murder mystery that isn't very compelling.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The movie does have a certain amount of star power and occasional bursts of inventive mise en scene, which do a good job of diverting us so we don't realize that not much else is going on.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This is not the sort of movie you make it your business to see in a theater. But if you're ever surfing cable TV and come across it, you'll linger.

Mr. Showbiz Richard T. Jameson

This is one Rudolph opus that leaves no afterglow.

Austin Chronicle Bryan Poyser

With his new film (which he also wrote), Rudolph seems content to slap a flimsy film-noir plot on an unending stream of malapropisms and word games and call it a "screwball noir."

TV Guide Ken Fox

In the long, hit-and-miss career of writer-director Alan Rudolph, this misbegotten comedy falls squarely into the miss bin.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A movie built on one joke -- an old one -- and an incoherent, even idiotic plot.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Director Alan Rudolph kills this promising film off with a combination of bad writing and wrong-headed direction.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

Wastes an A-list cast in a sorry send-up of B-movie private-eye cliches.

Miami Herald Sara Wildberger

Every character is quirky, and each has a schtick.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The acting is solid and the heroine's quirky dialogue is amusing for a while. But repetitious writing and a weakly constructed story turn the promising premise into a disappointing mishmash of crime, politics, and show business.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Torturously whimsical gumshoe caper.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Happily stuck between a rock and the deep blue sea.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Despite its occasional flashes of brilliance (every Rudolph film has them), this unsavory stew never comes to a boil.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Although the hallmarks of Rudolph movies can be found everywhere -- they don't add up to the usual magic this time.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It's so painful to sit through you eventually stop feeling sorry for the floundering cast.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Highfalutin swill determined to pass itself off as a jazzy caper.

Time Richard Corliss

If this retro crime comedy had been a Broadway play, it would have closed out of town.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

Where's the comedy?

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Classic Rudolph: a tone of sweet-edged, slightly kooky melancholy, a terrific cast mostly left to its own devices and a few intriguing moments. Not, I'm sorry to say, a movie.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

As overlong and undermotivated as it is absentmindedly incoherent.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The whole movie is like that: cute, dead and endless.