All Good Things 2010

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: All Good Things is thoroughly engrossing, a roman a clef that chillingly ponders a puzzle and suggests solutions outlandish enough to be stranger than anything Hollywood, on its own, could make up. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: What we have here is a somewhat higher grade of a Lifetime true-crime picture. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: It's a pretty picture or would be if the ominous music and camera position didn't seem directed at the man portentously lurking in the background. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: You go away slack-jawed with shock and sated with the chilling bedtime-story elements of a great unsolved mystery novel you can't put down. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The script draws insistently obvious psychological connections. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: A soap opera that stands at a distance from its characters (that distance being the length of a lawyer's briefcase) Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: You watch it wanting to scurry off to read accounts of the real thing, rather than being caught up in the filmmaking. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Proves disappointingly timid. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: As excellent as Gosling is - and the actor conveys the stillness of the man as well as the voices screaming in his head - Dunst matches him stride for stride. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The unsolved crime turns out to be less mysterious than the mind of the killer, nervily portrayed by Gosling as not evil but unaccountably empty. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Director Andrew Jarecki, who made his name with the documentary Capturing the Friedmans, is less successful at limning family dysfunctionality in the fictional mode. Read more

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter: An unsettling psychological thriller centered on three riveting performances. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Gosling is given the barest blueprint of a life gone terribly wrong and the actor struggles to make something out of nothing, though he does manage to give the older David an aura of weirdness that is downright creepy. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Jarecki knows how to make scenes of boisterous family reunions and quiet moments between lovers engaging: He fares less well, though, when the story takes a dark turn. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: It also feels like one man's attempt to try another in the court of cinema, or perhaps correct the course of justice itself. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The movie never jells. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The film is so busy working hard to convict one rather shady character, it never convinces us of its own reason to exist. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: There's plenty of information on what (might have) happened, but not much thought given to why. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The film ends up wrestling itself into a corner, though it's saved by a corrosive central performance from Ryan Gosling and a disconcertingly hypnotic feel. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Jarecki, the wealthy co-founder of Moviefone who directed the acclaimed documentary "Capturing the Friedmans," here presents another memorable portrait of a dysfunctional family over three decades. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's a strange, thrilling tale begrimed by bad memories, by bad deeds. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Although the movie posits a solution to an infamous missing person's case, it does so in a manner that is less than satisfying. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Kirsten Dunst is so good here as a woman at a loss to understand who her husband really is, and what the true nature of his family involves. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: All Good Things throws so many narrative balls in the air that you may struggle to catch up. It's worth the effort. Jarecki is a master of the telling detail. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Dunst is not the only person doing quality work in "All Good Things," but she is the only one worth watching. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "All Good Things" has the eerie power of a nightmare. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: There's a fascinating story here for a bolder filmmaker, but after so much meandering it's a relief that All Good Things must come to an end. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: It's a juicy story, though that doesn't excuse Jarecki from fixating above all else on the tabloid-ready twists and pop-psychological turns of Durst's story. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: This feverishly creepy but dramatically miscalculated picture reps an unhappy marriage of murky psychodrama and dubious theorizing. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: The case-history script is ever on-message, but Jarecki ignores the little details that create a credible social reality. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: As absorbing and detailed as "All Good Things" is, it never manages to levitate beyond tawdry movie-of-the-week voyeurism. Read more