An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.
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.
– J. R. Jones,
Chicago Reader,
7 Jul 2014
rotten:
"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.
– Calvin Wilson,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
10 Jul 2014
rotten:
It's all, I'm sorry to say, a melodramatic slog.
– Moira MacDonald,
Seattle Times,
10 Jul 2014
fresh:
Even if the story begins to melt into itself, at the end it's still fascinating to watch Haggis move his players.
– Tom Long,
Detroit News,
10 Jul 2014
rotten:
"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.