Art School Confidential
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: May 5, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
13
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is as dark as Zwigoff has gotten - arguably even darker than "Bad Santa." And, while it's legitimate to label Art School Confidential as a "comedy," the movie is more clever than it is funny. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The movie sputters in its later, darker passages, which by design are less audience-friendly than the earlier, satirically secure ones. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
There is a wise and understanding teacher on the faculty, played by Anjelica Huston. Defending the work of Dead White Males, she sensibly observes that when they did their best work "they weren't dead yet." Read full review
75
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Intelligent and robust contempt has become so rare in movies that the first half of Art School Confidential is intermittently exhilarating. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Art School Confidential is replete with humorous detail--in that respect, the student art projects are particularly fine--but it's the attitude that rules. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Art School Confidential reaches its dementedly brilliant peak in the company of Jim Broadbent. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
If a more elegant and succinct explanation of what compels some people to go to art school has ever been filmed, I haven't seen it. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It's far more ambitious than its predecessor and suffers from too many ideas rather than too few, making it an inspired, fascinating, and revealing mess. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Zwigoff has a rich comic gallery of pretentious boobs to lampoon. But his satirical target just seems too easy this time around: It's hard to spoof institutions that already veer so close to self-parody. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Art School Confidential mostly just makes you feel bad - period. It puts you in a foul mood and leaves you there. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
When it's on, it's really, really on. But when it's not, it feels like it's struggling to find its style, just as Jerome is. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
As the film devolved from satire to slapstick horror, I didn't believe in it at all. But in his beetle-browed intensity and tremulousness, I completely believed in Minghella's Jerome. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
There's simply nobody beneath the derisive attitude worth caring about. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Succeeds only in fits and starts. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDuane Byrge
With an "Animal House"-ish deportment, Art School likely will entertain a sophomoric audience and etch some winning college-kid figures, but art house audiences will be disappointed by its paint-by-numbers storytelling. Read full review
50
VarietyDavid Rooney
Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb." Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
This failure is especially surprising because Zwigoff not only reunited with "Ghost World's" writer, ingenious graphic artist Dan Clowes, but he aimed to satirize a rarefied sphere both know all too well: the art world. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
It doesn't help that the central character, Jerome - earnestly played by Max Minghella of "Bee Season" - is essentially a passive observer. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
There are two movies vying to occupy the same space here: a teen comedy about artistic pretension and academic double standards, and a darker, nastier movie about a serial killer. They share Zwigoff's trademark misanthropy, but it doesn't delight as it did in the perversely sweet "Bad Santa." Now it just feels mean. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Like a smart-ass student clever enough to see through everyone but himself, Art School Confidential falls victim to the very clichés it wants to puncture. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
It works for a good while--probably half of the movie. Read full review
50
SlateJosh Levin
Misanthropy can be incredibly entertaining, so long as that hatred draws blood. But that extra percentage point of venom has skewed Clowes and Zwigoff's aim. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But the film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother. Read full review
40
Film ThreatEric Campos
We still love you, Terry. Happens to the best of us. But, man, what a stinky load. Someone get the hose. Read full review
40
The New York TimesDana Stevens
In spite of some acute observations and a few interesting performances (most notably from John Malkovich as Jerome's drawing teacher and the ever-reliable Jim Broadbent as Strathmore's least illustrious alumnus), Art School Confidential is a dull and dyspeptic exercise in self-pity and hostility. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Zwigoff's overdue for a turkey, in other words. Art School Confidential is it. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Art School Confidential, the first disappointment from director Terry Zwigoff, is all glum, dour cynicism. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Insistently sullen, nihilistic, and successful to the point of smugness at transmitting buzzkill, Art School Confidential is the second collaboration between art-house cartoonist Daniel Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Zwigoff doesn't get the tone right, and the picture goes from reasonably amusing (if crude) to puzzling to boring to (when a campus strangler enters the picture) hateful. Read full review
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