Listen Up Philip 2014

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry, Listen Up Philip looks like the kind of movie film classes would study in the 1970s. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A movie that starts appealingly but gradually comes to seem closed and stuck. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: A juvenile experiment in pretentious idiosyncrasy by amateurish writer-director Alex Ross Perry. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: A very entertaining black comedy for very mysterious reasons. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: How you respond to "Listen Up Philip" might depend on how you respond to a complex, intelligent but thoroughly annoying person who gets up in your face at a party. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: Jason Schwartzman shines as a self-absorbed writer who doesn't quite learn the err of his ways in Alex Ross Perry's sharp and darkly funny third feature. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: It's a movie of aftermaths-yet it crackles with a sense of immediacy, the handheld camera pushing its way into tight emotional spaces, framing the actors in revealing and unflattering close-up. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Uncomfortable? Sure. But it's also kind of fantastic. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Why would anyone want to spend time with these people? Because they're fools with great gifts, and Perry almost lovingly explores the gulf between the beauty with which they create and the smallness with which they live. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: As a rising young novelist in the Philip Roth vein, Schwartzman delivers Perry's dyspeptic, neurotic, supremely arrogant dialogue even better than Perry himself did in the earlier movie. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Writer-director Perry has made a bracing and very Roth-y study of ambition and itchy literary yearning. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: As uncomfortably funny as the film is, it isn't really a comedy. It's a character study of an unlikable narcissist whose obliviousness to other people's feelings happens to be hilarious. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: Schwartzman is absolute perfect casting. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: [An] indisputably talented work for its risk-taking, dark humor and barbed portraiture of creative individuals ... Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: While the intolerance fueling this dark, existential comedy won't be to everyone's liking, the film's cerebral beat-down is a strange and sardonic thing of beauty. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Listen Up Philip" works as satire, but it's also as big and messy as one of its novelists' novels. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: I can't think of a recent movie that stages with as much joy and wonder the sense of living a life that becomes, directly or obliquely, in action or in idea, the stuff of art. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The movie works on a couple of levels at once, being not only a Rothian story, but a kind of story about Roth - or any writer who's sometimes found it easier to focus on pages than people. Read more

Tomas Hachard, NPR: Despite Philip and Ike's deep-set stubbornness, however, the experience of watching Listen Up Philip feels like a revelation. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: But while you'd think audiences would barely even register a cad any more, two new movies - 'Listen Up Philip' and 'Force Majeure' - resurrect the breed with leading men who are almost impossible to empathize with, but compelling nonetheless Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: So much cynicism might be unbearable were it not for the sure hand of director Perry. He, along with narrator Eric Bogosian, approaches the intellectually brilliant, emotionally empty antihero with bemusement. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Words do more than hurt, they also slash and burn in this sharp, dyspeptic, sometimes gaspingly funny exploration of art and life, men and women, being and nonbeing, and the power and limits of language. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Jason Schwartzman is deadpan dynamite in Alex Ross Perry's poisonous valentine to the New York literary scene. Some audiences just don't cotton to movies with flawed characters you love to hate. Pussies. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Hardly anyone will feel neutral about this deliberately unfriendly film, but if you don't respond to it with revulsion you'll probably think it's one of the most ambitious and exciting American films of the year. Read more

Thomas Lee, San Francisco Chronicle: "Listen Up Philip" wants to say something meaningful about human relationships. But like a frustrated writer staring at a blank piece of paper, the words just never appear. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Listen Up Philip, the third feature from writer/director Alex Ross Perry, may be this year's most unpleasant movie I've nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If Philip showed a bit of personality beyond being a boor and a bore, he might be worth almost two hours of attention. Read more

J. Hoberman, Tablet: Well-written, strongly acted, and often very funny ... Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: If you've ever sat in a focus group and said, "I wish the characters were more likable," this is not the movie for you. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It's a movie that loves boldly "important" '70s-style dust jackets, loves its own lecturing voice (courtesy of neurotic narrator Eric Bogosian) and somehow makes that melange strangely appealing. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The vainglorious pas de deux between Philip and Zimmerman is entertaining for a while, though the novelty gradually wears off. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: A central figure who's all bad is even more boring than one who's all good. He has no dramatic stature. He's a case study. The audience should be paid to listen up. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Perry's acerbic sense of the literary/academic lifestyle - which, oddly enough, involves less actual writing and teaching than drinking and "thinking" - is both exceptionally funny and deeply sad. Read more