Men, Women & Children 2014

Wesley Morris, Grantland: This is one of the worst movies of the year -- maybe the worst. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: As he demonstrated with 'Juno' and 'Up in the Air,' Reitman has an uncanny knack among contemporary directors for tapping into the zeitgeist in dramatically satisfying ways. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: So depressing and pretentious that you may wonder how it got that way. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Men, Women & Children" is crowded with characters and subplots, a few of which resonate - but more often, an individual's story seems lost in the cyberflurry. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Men, Women & Children attempts to achieve the tone of Reitman's early films, pirouetting between behavioral levity and dark melodrama, yet it often falls flat. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: A well-meaning but curiously anesthetized ensemble piece. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: It plays like a tone-deaf rant from people who stumbled online for the first time last week and could not believe what they saw. Why, there's pornography! And violent video games! Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The moments in "Men, Women & Children" that are supposed to sting - like the malls and high school hallways filled with text-bubbles over everyone's heads as they walk obliviously past each other - are already a visual cliche. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Once Reitman has finished zinging his characters for their self-absorption, their chronic loneliness and insecurity prove rich material for the able cast. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It is the year's scariest film simply because it's the year's most realistic: Welcome to your nightmare. Read more

Preston Jones, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: The moments when Men, Women & Children transcends its limitations and offers a raw-nerved portrait of the Internet-infected suburbs are powerful - nearly enough to forgive the film's diffuse focus and flab. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Why, in an age when we're more connected to others than ever thanks to the Internet and social media, are we all so lonely? It's not an idle question. But the director's answer to it is surprisingly obvious and unnuanced. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A keen, analytical portrait of the current moment in electronic and interpersonal communications. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The question that keeps returning is why a writer-director usually so canny in capturing cultural evolutions would turn so reactionary in taking on a computer-dependent society. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: The tragedy of Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children is that it was released the year it was made. In 2034, two decades of distance will give it the weight of a documentary. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The problem with Men, Women & Children - and it's a big one - is that the movie isn't telling us anything we don't already know. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: As the narratives build toward their predictable conclusions, "Men, Women & Children" seems wholly unaware that these various evils existed long before Facebook and Instagram. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Reitman and Wilson have many good ideas, but "Men, Women & Children" has too many men, women, and children. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Reitman has always had a feel for female stories, and Elena Kampouris and Kaitlyn Dever are particularly touching as teen girls trapped in the world that social media has made even more suspicious and competitive. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: For the first time, Reitman is truly wearing his heart on his sleeve, expressing ordinary vulnerability and everyday worries. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Veering between alarmism and cautious reassurance - between technohysteria and shrugging, nothing-new-under-the-sun resignation - "Men, Women & Children" succumbs to the confusion it tries to illuminate. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: The plotline, just like the rest of the movie (written by Reitman and Erin Cressida Wilson), veers toward the extreme, hammering home the film's heavy histrionics. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's a wonder the actors aren't showing bruise marks from all the heavy-handed direction, the unrelenting solemnity of the thing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: These characters are extremes but Reitman employs them in this microcosm to dramatic (and sometimes darkly comedic) purposes. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Jason Reitman has lost his touch in Men, Women & Children, a scolding sermon on the evils of the Internet. Preacher Reitman won't be satisfied till we stomp our smartphones. LOL. WTF. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It all adds up to a lecture delivered in the Peanuts-parents squonk-voice, from someone much too young to be willingly wearing those mom-pants. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's like a collection of shared and traded Instagram posts. Revealing the telling moments of individual lives in snapshots leaves an itch to dig deeper. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: In trying to be a big, important movie, "Men, Women & Children" is about none of the above. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: These interwoven tales of suburban parents and high-schoolers--united by the common themes of sex, alienation, and the Internet--amount to a kind of techno-misanthropic Love Actually. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Men, Women & Children is as anxious to seem contemporary as any after-school special. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Men, Women & Children may not be Reitman's best, but points to the Canadian director for ambition and assembling an admirable cast with not a weak performance in the bunch. Read more

James Rocchi, TheWrap: Reitman clearly wants to get at something human in his films - connection, family, humanity - but he lacks the artistic tools to explore those things; a man stabbing at the stony soil of an archaeological dig with only a Q-tip to uncover its wonders. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The first Reitman film to make the 36-year-old director seem about 400 years old. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Think a computer-driven, de-fanged Crash, without the ethnic diversity. Not exactly an epic fail, it could have used a reboot. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: The film is so enamored of its own facile ironies that it fails to go anywhere with its observations. Read more