That a great comic idea does not necessarily make for a great screen comedy is the lesson for first-time writer-director-star Ricky Gervais as he comes unstuck.
– Trevor Johnston,
Time Out,
4 Oct 2009
rotten:
The last third of the movie is as bad as anything I've seen this year, with the laughs trailing off, and half of the supporting characters, the zestier ones, being airbrushed from the frame.
– Anthony Lane,
New Yorker,
5 Oct 2009
fresh:
I think the first half hour would be almost impossible to sustain because it is so inspired.
– Michael Phillips,
Chicago Tribune,
5 Oct 2009
rotten:
It's bogged down in too many squishy romantic-comedy pieties.
– A.O. Scott,
At the Movies,
5 Oct 2009
rotten:
There are cycles of inspiration and rebirth, but the barbed promise of the early going loses its way in choices aimed at sentimentality rather than, as Harvey Kurtzman memorably put it, humor in a jugular vein.