People Like Us 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: It's hideously compelling, like being in the room when one woman asks a woman who isn't pregnant when she's due, except that exchange is typically over in 30 spectacularly awful seconds and this one lasts two hours. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: ...a sentimental but strongly made standout in a summer otherwise full of superheroes and space aliens. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The performances, especially Ms. Banks's Frankie and Ms. Pfeiffer's Lillian, partly compensate for the holes in a story whose timing is hard to swallow. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: People Like Us is informed by real feelings uncorked like a lost bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon hidden away in a dark corner of a private wine cellar. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It seems ridiculous to dance around plot details when the movie allows the audience to get ahead of the story and to stay there as events laboriously unfold. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's not an entirely fresh idea but always an intriguing one. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: The film does have its charms, but getting to them means seeing past a Buick-sized contrivance. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: Though it's just a Christmas tree away from being a holiday special, the stellar cast wrings just enough genuine emotion out of a stale premise to make it mostly sweet. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie develops into a painful story of one generation inflicting its selfish compromises on the next. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Kurtzman ... hammers every scene and eye blink with a heavy hand. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: People Like Us seems to have been devised for audiences who want to experience an entire year's worth of soap opera complications in a single sitting. Read more

Joy Tipping, Dallas Morning News: It's a movie that's in a league with films from the golden age of family drama, stories like Ordinary People and Kramer vs. Kramer, although People's dashes of comedy render it far less grim than those examples. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: It's encouraging to see a wielder of studio heft test his mettle with the all-too-human. In a season of superheroes and their nemeses, Kurtzman takes on characters hurting, hoping, trying to rise to the occasion of family. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "People Like Us" may not be perfect, but Banks is perfectly imperfect. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Pine and Banks are just good enough to suggest that in an honest movie, they would have been even better. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: A good payoff, but the middle drags. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: As overcranked as it is -- the film is directed as if it were an action drama, with two or three times more cuts than necessary -- People Like Us has a persuasive emotional pull at its heart that's hard to deny. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Too shiny and drenched in California glow to feel very personal. It grows increasingly sentimental, and by the end, lays it on especially thick. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Do you see how colossally misguided this whole thing is? Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: If it weren't for the whole shared-DNA problem, "People Like Us" might have made a nice pot of romantic mush. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: What they've really done is stitch together a decade's worth of Katherine Heigl/Jennifer Aniston/Kate Hudson romantic comedies, and then cut out all the romance and most of the comedy. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: A sensitive, decent, well-crafted little drama about frailty and forgiveness. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Its hard sell wears you down and draws you in, even as you know you're being manipulated. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: One of those "heartfelt" dramas that was obviously dreamed up to win awards but fell short and is instead being dumped before awards season. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Some of the strongest writing in any movie so far this year. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: People Like us is saved from melodramatic quicksand by live-wire acting from a touchingly vulnerable Chris Pine and a heartbreakingly good Elizabeth Banks. We believe we are watching people like us. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: If not for the icky air of incest, Pine and Banks would make one fine-looking couple. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Pine and the always-watchable Banks make the best of a bad screenplay, but "People Like Us" gives us nothing that we can relate to. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: People Like Us is that sort of on-the-nose drama, where every emotional reaction is telegraphed and delivered right on cue. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Alex Kurtzman's debut feature can emotionally manipulate you before the narrative house of cards collapses and things go from sweet-and-sour to full-on NutraSweet. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: People Like Us is neither funny enough for comedy or serious enough for real drama. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The movie's soap opera quality undermines its efforts to tell a family saga with much believability. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Genuine emotions barely win out over soapy complications in People Like Us. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: People Like Us is a certifiable adult drama built atop sturdy thematic supports, a rare enough item these days... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Ultimately, the movie's fundamental truth shines through the Hollywood gloss. Read more