The Comedy 2012

David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle: A mean-spirited piece of mumblecore that tries to provoke you, but only succeeds in boring you. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: If you can discern any critical distance or interesting perspective here, or even a good reason to spend 90 minutes in such company, I'm afraid the joke is on you. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The longest and dreariest 94 minutes I've spent on a movie this year. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Its audience may be self-selective in the extreme, but few films have better articulated the limits of irony as a force field against the world. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: The joke, I guess, is that there's nothing funny about "The Comedy." Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: None of this is necessarily funny. That's the extent of the irony here. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The Comedy pretends to be a satire of entitlement, but it's made in a style so indulgent that the whole film feels entitled in the extreme. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: A seemingly sincere movie about a deeply ironic and unfulfilled man as he belongs to a culture - hell, maybe even an entire generation - terrified of sincerity. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: The anomie of entitlement pushed to poisonous extremes is the basis of this provocation, which is as frustrating as it is intriguing. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: This is, in effect, "Arthur" meets "Jackass." Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The movie may critique its antihero, but it also offers just one more venue in which he's allowed to wallow - while we pay his way. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A character study that tries to make the revolting compelling. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: [A] faux-courageous nondrama. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: For a catalog of aggressively stupid, socially deviant male behavior, Rick Alverson's cheekily titled The Comedy is not without a certain subversive intelligence. Read more

Aaron Hillis, Village Voice: Transgressively brilliant... an itchy critique of entitlement starring avant-garde comedian Tim Heidecker as one of Williamsburg's overprivileged. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: There's not a false note in the film, but maybe there's a difference between accuracy and truth. Read more