Third Person 2014

Wesley Morris, Grantland: It makes sense that these people all seem puzzled. They're pieces. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: "Third Person" has nothing to say and spends 2 1/2 hours not saying it. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Clumsy and contrived, the film never manages to connect the dots in a trio of stories set in three different cities, and I had to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The movie is based on a fundamental miscalculation-that our desire to penetrate its mysteries will trump our need for people to care about. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's all, I'm sorry to say, a melodramatic slog. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Though virtually every twist on this emotional roller coaster feels preordained by its architect, the director leaves certain mysteries for the audience to interpret, making for a more open-ended and mature work all around. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Haggis has tackled his own penchant for heavy-handedness with a typically heavy hand. Those who groaned through Crash will find plenty to groan about here, too. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Third Person" staggers well over the two-hour mark only to self-destruct in a burst of overwrought cleverness. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Trust is essential to any love relationship, writer-director Paul Haggis wants us to know, though he trusts us so little to grasp this theme ourselves that he makes his alter ego here, a world-weary novelist played by Liam Neeson, spell it out. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Writer-director Paul Haggis' exasperating multistory drama about how hard it is for a nice, quiet, sensitive guy to be left alone to write an exasperating multistory drama. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Another drama-orama that, like Crash, piles up stories that aren't all that much worth telling in the first place. Read more

Sean Fitz-Gerald, Denver Post: Plumbing emotional depths, Haggis turns the characters' tribulations onto the viewer: If white is the color of trust -- as Neeson's author writes -- aren't we all a little gray? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Even if the story begins to melt into itself, at the end it's still fascinating to watch Haggis move his players. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: By the time we're done taking in the sights and Haggis finally coughs up his third-act puzzle-box twist, it comes off as a big metaphysical So What. Read more

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter: An excellent ensemble cast, led by Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis and James Franco doesn't disappoint, though they struggle to keep things afloat over a running time of more than two hours. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "Third Person" maddens far more than it intrigues. Indeed, more curious than anything about the movie itself is how such an artistic stumble happened. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: His cast is terrific but it's embarrassing to watch them embrace Haggis' screaming nonsense, like walking in on Laurence Olivier in the bathroom Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Haggis has written and directed better films than "Third Person," and I bet he'll make even better ones in the future. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: This really is one of the dark-horse pictures of the year. Its deepest feelings are for narrative puzzle and its solutions, so it is some way from the blunt emotional impact usually associated with movie success. See it once; see it twice. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Third Person" is such a solipsistic, navel-gazing creation that it seems to have barely made it out of Haggis' mind and onto the screen. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Third Person is the kind of eccentric and emotionally exhausting movie whose ardent sincerity remains in memory after smoother, more conventional works have passed into oblivion. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It gets too clever - perhaps a sign of those 20, or 50, endlessly tweaked different drafts. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: If the film didn't take its own intended profundity so seriously, it might get a pass. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Almost everything in it - including every mannered look on the faces of the hard-working actors - brings about a cringe. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The storytelling is infuriatingly coy, as if Mr. Haggis were trying to fool you (and himself) into thinking that he has something to say. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Third Person falls into a kind of fugue state. The lines between characters become blurred, their respective losses and heartbreaks dissolving into a melancholy vapor. Or vapidity. Take your pick. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Haggis' ambition is admirable, especially without the cushion of ironic detachment. But what's on screen is a meandering mess, more satisfying to dissect in retrospect than to live with in the moment. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's a nifty construction - three parallel and sometimes interlocking love stories, each of them tricky in themselves - and even if you see some of its twists coming, you won't see all of them. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Third Person" is Paul Haggis' best movie, and the one he has been building toward for years. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The look of the film is gorgeous, the actors inhabit their roles convincingly, and its artistic aims are higher than most. Still, I can't endorse the self-consciously clever result. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Third Person" doesn't lack for ambition, and it's nice to see Neeson in the kind of role that he excelled at before he morphed into an action star. But the film may have some folks wishing they'd bought a ticket to "Transformers 4" instead. Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: Though Haggis has crafted an ambitious tale, it is way too complicated and convoluted. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The narrative pileup feels like a game of Indiewood channel surfing, toggling between several mediocre options. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The muddled concept is forced to the point of breaking, the writing overheated and the story arc grimly perplexing. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's not so much that Paul Haggis is a bad filmmaker but that his talents seem so unsuited to what he apparently wants to do. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Third Person" aims to be singular, but winds up being hoist on its own conceit: Fiction may not be real, but we're still supposed to believe at least a word of it. Read more