Stewart Braunstein

Nicholson is brilliant, but the movie is deeply depressing. The banal characters are uniformly nauseating, obnoxious and clueless, which drives the black comedy running through it. The funniest scene is Schmidt trying to get into a water bed; otherwise, the plot unfolds like someone’s worst nightmare. There is a certain truth in the irony of Schmidt the older, more cultivated ignoramus passionately protesting the marriage of his daughter to another ignoramus, painfully realized by Dermot Mulroney. The movie may be the greatest evocation of human sadness, wrapped in blandness and blankness, ever filmed. It was torture to watch.

The sluggish pace of this film and its verbosity undermine the subject matter, to the sad point of boredom. Liam Neeson’s strong performance can’t save the experience. The writing and direction are woefully inadequate to the events depicted. Diane Lane is wasted.

I’m stunned by the favorable reviews of this pure trash. It’s a cynical high school “dork fantasy”. A statuesque, gorgeous, accomplished, elite woman falls in love with an hysterical, bearded, unkempt, grossly immature and unsophisticated pizza delivery guy? Gimme an effing break!! The whole movie is a pastiche of tv sitcom dialogue. Seeing Theron in this junk is sad; another fine actress over 40 on the downslide. Thanks, Joe Morgenstern of WSJ, for telling the truth about this swill.