51
Metascore
39 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 67Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattEntertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattLinklater, who brought such subtle, generous feeling to films like Boyhood and the Sunset trilogy, feels somehow miscast as the steward of Bernadette‘s willful eccentricities.
- 60The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisAmusing and sleepy pretty much describe this movie.
- 60TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanTheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanThose who arrive without any preconceptions — or are willing to stray from the novel’s style — will appreciate the assets of a modestly engaging and gently touching dramedy.
- 58IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichThe more engaging question is where Bernadette disappeared to for the two decades before the movie begins. It may not be much of a mystery, but where Bernadette went is far more believable and broadly real a story than where she ends up. It’s a story that’s too complicated for Linklater to tell here.
- 50Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversIt’s the human devastation that gets short shrift in a movie that turns the hot, hilarious, out-for-blood Bernadette into the thing she hates most: conventional.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyRichard Linklater's 19th feature becomes compelling in its final act, but before that too often appears tonally addled and dramatically dawdling.
- 50VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanLinklater, as brilliant a filmmaker as he is, is a kind of Zen rationalist; his shot language and essential humanity invite us to look at Bernadette and think, “You need help.” But that stops the character, even in her baroquely witty lashing out, from becoming a projection of a larger passion.
- 40The GuardianBenjamin LeeThe GuardianBenjamin LeeIt’s the kind of adaptation that is so misjudged that you end up struggling to see why anyone thought it a good idea to adapt in the first place.
- 38Slant MagazineCarson LundSlant MagazineCarson LundThe film is a curiously anodyne affair that proposes the distinctly unenlightening idea that the medicine against despair is just a little R&R.
- 38Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreRichard Linklater’s film of Where’d You Go Bernadette may offer the great Cate Blanchett a star vehicle she can sink her incisors into. But rather than a meaty meal, it’s a gooey goulash of randomly expressed “feels.”