Hope Springs 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Hope Springs isn't an exciting movie, not remotely -- its narrative arc revolves around getting a couple on the far side of middle age to resume conjugal relations -- but I couldn't look away. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: Though falling short of what might have been, Hope Springs must still be recommended as superior entertainment for card-carrying grown-ups. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: An awkward cross between a domestic comedy and a marital tragedy that's laced with laughs, soggy with tears and burdened by a booming, blunt soundtrack that amplifies every narrative beat Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: All that's missing are commercials for estrogen cream and erectile-dysfunction meds. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: For mature audiences who have forgotten how to smile, it takes up where The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel left off. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A surprise that sneaks up and moves you, "Hope Springs" has the courage of its awkwardness, and this is said admiringly in the spirit of the film, which is irony-free and unfashionably earnest. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's refreshing to see a film that treats intimacy among an older couple as something real and meaningful (usually it's a punch line), and Streep and Jones bring honesty and warmth to their roles. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Hope Springs handles marriage and advanced-age sexuality with a refreshing, down-to-earth candor. In today's Hollywood, that counts as radical. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Thanks to tremendous performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep, "Hope Springs" is a charming film. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: "Hope Springs" panders with the clumsiness of grown-ups trying to do "Step Up" dance moves. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: These modest virtues are buried under such hard-sell devices as a manipulative muzak score and sitcom-style close-ups that disrupt the narrative momentum. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's gratifying to see a movie that doesn't have anything to do with superheroics or the end of the world, merely ordinary heroics of the human heart. Read more

Tom Charity, CNN.com: Streep fans, I think you're going to enjoy this one. I know I did. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: If the film doesn't really explore the pain and bitterness of this marriage, it's still leagues ahead of most such attempts. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: It's all a little depressing. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It keeps undercutting itself by going for cheap laughs. It wants to be an adult film, but it obviously feels adults need constant, broad tickling to hold their attention. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The movie provides a master lesson in great American character acting, but viewers are also invited to just kick back and enjoy the fun of watching famous, aging movie stars pretend to have difficulties in the sack. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Much like the marriage with which it's concerned, the more Hope Springs tries to spice things up, the harder it becomes to enjoy. The moments when either works, though, really ought to count for something. Read more

Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter: More comedic drama than midlife romantic comedy, rather literally titled Hope Springs holds few surprises but delivers plenty of warmth. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: It will make you want to go home and have sex with your spouse afterward. Or at least share a longer hug or a more passionate kiss. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: This well-considered look at a long marriage that has lost its spark proves that old love is as fraught as any teenage crush and sex never fades as a source of contention. Read more

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News: It's going for the truth in people's lives and, for the most part, it finds it. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Like a Hannah Montana movie, Hope Springs argues there are no romantic ills that a walk on the beach and a few pop songs on the soundtrack can't cure. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: It's tough to come up with new superlatives for Meryl Streep, but the 63-year-old actress delivers her most frankly sexual performance yet in Hope Springs. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The film, a rehab job on a beached marriage, displays the most tender respect, the most exquisite tact, and yet it would be completely unwatchable -- an outright embarrassment -- with any other actors than Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Both performers are enormous fun to watch; it's not often that either of them gets a co-star so well-matched to them (or that Jones is willing to do more than coast on a wince and a grumble). Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: Contrasting the cookie-cutter rom-com ad campaign, Hope Springs comes as a pleasant surprise: Vanessa Taylor's screenplay is largely a subdued and thoughtful piece, a no-frills look at scenes from this marriage. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A genuinely sweet, perfectly acted, remarkably brave little movie that should make audiences swoon for something they thought was gone - a smart dramedy for grown-ups. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: "Hope Springs'' could have been unbearably schmaltzy or crude. Instead, in the hands of these expert actors and filmmakers, it's a warm and wryly affecting mid-summer treat. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: As the wife whose feelings are right on the surface and the husband whose are in a lockbox, Streep and Jones earned my empathy without asking for it. There are few actors whose body English is as eloquent. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Hope Springs has the unusual distinction of providing a sample of what an Ingmar Bergman movie might be like if made for mass American consumption. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Director to Jones: "Just be yourself." Works for me. Master class in acting from the two leads. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The reason to see it is for Jones. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What could have been strained farce or, worse, geezer porn, morphs instead into a film of hilarious and heartfelt pleasures. It helps that director David Frankel has two of the best actors on the planet to raise the game. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's something like Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage," as translated into the universe of the Lifetime Network. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Sometimes a serviceable story is elevated by a masterstroke of casting. In "Hope Springs," it's two masterstrokes. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Only an audience as constipated as these characters could mistake this lukewarm stream of pablum for a hard nugget of truth. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Yes, this is the fascinating stuff, a rare (in pop culture) look at the complex nature of the love-sex equation -- when it's too direct, when it's too vague, when it breaks down completely. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Hews closer to Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage than to a Lifetime movie. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Streep is warm, and she's got the timing of a stand-up. Her performance demands you bat for her woman. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Sugar may help the medicine go down, but serving up the glucose in such goopy portions (especially when the elixir is the intriguing part) doesn't help anyone. Read more

Toronto Star: Somewhere along the line, what probably started out as a character study ended up as a wobbly drama that pushes some boundaries but eventually lets everyone off the emotional hook in favor of a smoothed-over happy ending. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's about as uncomfortable as sitting through an interminable counseling session - involving two people you hardly know and don't much care about. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: An altogether pleasant surprise: a mainstream dramedy that frankly and intelligently addresses the challenges facing a couple after 31 years of marriage. Read more

Simon Abrams, Village Voice: Jones and Streep give likable enough performances as a humane monster and a human victim. But their characters never become more than that. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Hope Springs" is a minor miracle of a movie. Read more