A Perfect Day
IFC Films | Release Date: January 15, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 21, 2016
With an eclectic soundtrack that features...well-timed editing and crisp cinematography — and of course that terrific cast led by the great Del Toro — A Perfect Day is a rough-edged gem. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 15, 2016
The characters in A Perfect Day don’t get to indulge in much eccentricity because they’re too busy banging their wills against bureaucratic idiocy. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Jan 13, 2016
Director de Aranoa keeps things moving, though, with a firm sense of pace and a rough, punk-edged soundtrack. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 14, 2016
This wonderful little film, directed by Fernando León de Aranoa and set “somewhere in the Balkans” in 1996, is extremely witty and light on its feet, yet it manages to be thoughtful, even philosophical, in an absurdist way, about the roots of human conflict. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJan 12, 2016
A Perfect Day is a wry salute to the hard-drinking, eye-rolling aid workers of the world, men and women whose high ideals get crushed by global bureaucracy and local recalcitrance. Read full review
70
Screen DailyLee MarshallMay 22, 2015
The humanity of the enterprise, hovering between sympathy and ironic detachment, keeps the script on course, delivering a story that for all its motley-band-of-brothers clichés feels as authentic as many more pious takes on the Bosnian conflict. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 20, 2016
Del Toro’s low-key resignation gives the film what power it has, but the female characters (played by Mélanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko) are disappointingly thin. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJan 14, 2016
On a moment-to-moment basis, A Perfect Day is reasonably engaging, mostly because of its novel milieu—there haven’t been many films about foreign aid workers, and Farías clearly amassed a wealth of anecdotes during her time with DWB. Trouble is, it plays like a collection of anecdotes. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 20, 2018
It’s never less than watchable, but I can’t say it’s particularly memorable (save for that soundtrack). Perfectly Netfixable adventure in a minor key. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickJan 20, 2016
The ironically titled A Perfect Day isn’t entirely successful, but Del Toro is wonderful and there are many well-judged moments, some involving a 9-year-old (Eldar Residovic) whose return to his home underlines the tragedies of this particular conflict. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineClayton DillardJan 10, 2016
The film finally seems conspicuously at odds with itself, neither funny nor impassioned enough to pass as an accomplished vision of transnational welfare. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 11, 2016
So acclimatized are we to action flicks, and to onscreen conflicts teeming with soldiers, that it’s refreshing to find a film that concentrates on hanging back and reversing out of harm’s way. Read full review
60
The GuardianHenry BarnesMay 22, 2015
Inconsistency is A Perfect Day’s biggest problem. The script is scalpel sharp in some places, flabby as the well-blocker in others. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 22, 2015
While it's uneven, A Perfect Day builds to a nice melancholy conclusion. It underscores with gentle strokes the frustration and disillusionment of self-sacrificing workers confronted on a daily basis with feelings of futility in the face of corruption and compromise. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 22, 2015
When the film gets going, it’s hard not to be bustled along with it, thanks mostly to León de Aranoa’s talent for punchy comic dialogue – doubly impressive, given this is his first English-language picture – and the plot’s habit of thwarting your expectations as to where the most morally upstanding course of action might lead. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangMay 22, 2015
By the end, thanks to Leon de Aranoa’s steady direction and the actors’ slow-building character work, “A Perfect Day” manages to coalesce into a reasonably tough-minded, compassionate vision of the difficulties and rewards of trying to do the right thing in an intractable situation, though the film has to overcome more than a few flat, indolent stretches to get there. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorFeb 25, 2016
A Perfect Day, the first English-language feature from the Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa, is in many ways a remarkable film: a taut, darkly comic drama about the dilemmas of international intervention in civil war, all of it neatly symbolized by one elusive length of rope. It is also, sadly, a film much marred by its sexism. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 14, 2016
A serviceable, watchable movie. Read full review
50
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonMay 22, 2015
The humor is there on paper, but it ends up emptily quippy and gag-filled rather deriving the jokes from situations and character, and only one in three end up landing, mostly thanks to Robbins. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 14, 2016
It suffers from a marked lack of narrative energy and a regrettable surfeit of clichéd characterization. Read full review
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