Bartleby
Outrider Pictures | Release Date: May 24, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
5
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence, composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor, or an absurdist workplace sitcom, as if a team of French surrealists had been put in charge of "The Drew Carey Show." Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
While Parker and co-writer Catherine di Napoli are faithful to Melville’s plotline, they and a fully engaged supporting cast — have made the old boy's characters more quick-witted than any English Lit major would have thought possible. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
The neat thing about Jonathan Parker's modern-day Bartleby (Outsider Pictures) is that it brings out all the vaudeville undercurrents in Melville's dark tale and turns it into a surreal tragi-sitcom for our own era. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
This is a shrewd and effective film from a director who understands how to create and sustain a mood. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldCharles Savage
Though this film can be clumsy, its ambitions are equally -- and admirably -- uncommercial. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The film has been directed by Jonathan Parker; he adapted the Melville story with Catherine DiNapoli. It's his first work, and a promising one. I admire it and yet cannot recommend it, because it overstays its natural running time. Read full review
60
VarietyJoe Leydon
Although closer in tone to "Office Space" than Herman Melville, Jonathan Parker's absurdist update of Bartleby is surprisingly faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the "Moby-Dick" author's 1853 novella about an under-achieving Wall Street copy clerk. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
It's a parable as timely today as when it was written. But except for Paymer as the boss who ultimately expresses empathy for Bartleby's pain, the performances are so stylized as to be drained of human emotion. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
It's a testament to both the timelessness and the prescience of Herman Melville's 1853 story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" that it can be so easily updated with so few changes. Read full review
40
Film ThreatRon Wells
Oh, boy. This is not unlike watching one of the movies Jerry Lewis made after that concentration camp/clown epic nearly destroyed his career and his mind. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
It's not a bad idea, and it has the right cast and the right look. But, sad to say, it lacks the pace and energy to make it come alive and therefore remains more of a literary conceit than a movie. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Comes across as stiff and uneven. Read full review
40
New Times (L.A.)Luke Y. Thompson
A key problem here is that the film is adapting a short story, and, as such, has to pad it out to feature length -- it still comes in at a scant 82 minutes, about 52 minutes too long. Read full review
40
EmpireNick Dawson
A fable that leaves us unenlightened at the end, it is a curious, worthy failure. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Does little more than re-create the oppressive feeling of suffocating employment. And why put yourself through that experience without the promise of a paycheck at the other end? Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Parker's film is flat beyond the flatness appropriate to the story; the conflict between Glover and Paymer follows Melville's original so squarely that it quickly begins to feel like they're going through the motions. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's no insult to Melville to say that he wrote, in effect, the original ''Dilbert.'' This movie, unfortunately, makes ''Dilbert'' look like Melville. Read full review
25
New York PostMegan Lehmann
There's obviously some philosophical comment on the alienating effects of ho-hum toil buried somewhere in this weird mess, which features an irritating, theremin-heavy score. But can you be bothered stifling a yawn and searching for meaning? I would prefer not to. Read full review
20
Village VoiceJessica Winter
The loud, musty production design -- steeped in lime greens and tangerine oranges -- smells of recirculated air and enervated ambition, but unfortunately, so does the movie itself. Read full review
More From This Movie

48 Critic Reviews

7.1 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL