Being There

United Artists | Release Date: December 19, 1979

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

83	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Roger Ebert

It's a movie based on an idea, and all the conventional wisdom agrees that emotions, not ideas, are the best to make movies from. But Being There pulls off its long shot and is one of the most confoundingly provocative movies of the year. Read full review

100

Ron Pennington

Hal Ashby's direction is perfect in realizing the offbeat humor and gentle satire of the piece. Read full review

100

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Jerzy Kosinski's modern fable gets a terrific translation to the screen due to his tight screenplay, capable direction by Ashby, and a marvelous performance by Sellers, one unlike any other in his career. Read full review

Keith Phipps

Being There finds humor in the way Sellers becomes a blank screen on which people project their expectations. But it also finds value in his simplicity, which might seem like a lot of New Age hokum if not for Sellers' disarmingly quiet performance. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Being There is a highly unusual and an unusually fine film. A faithful but nonetheless imaginative adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski's quirky comic novel, pic marks a significant achievement for director Hal Ashby and represents Peter Sellers' most smashing work since the mid-1960s. Read full review

David Ansen

Being There's dry, dark humor sneaks up on you: until Chauncey arrives at Douglas's home you may not even know it is a comedy. That's Ashby's method, and his confidence pays off in one of the year's most unusual and engrossing films. [31 Dec 1979, p.48]

James Berardinelli

A delightfully dark comedy that, despite a cynical bent, offers viewers a good time. Read full review

Budd Wilkins

Elegiac and yet ruefully funny, Hal Ashby’s Being There is at once a profoundly philosophical fable about how we become truly human only in the face of our ineluctable mortality, as well as an incensed satire intent on skewering the mass media’s unhealthy sway among the corridors of wealth and power. Read full review

EmpireIan Nathan

A placid, poignant, well-kept secret of a movie. Read full review

Frank Rich

Here is a comedy that valiantly defies both gravity and the latest Hollywood fashion. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Hal Ashby directs Being There at an unruffled, elegant pace, the better to let Mr. Sellers's double-edged mannerisms make their full impression upon the audience. Read full review

Josh Larsen

You can see the movie’s influence on everything from Forrest Gump to Idiocracy to Elf, all comedies with oblivious, world-changing simpletons at their center. Read full review

Dave Kehr

The director, Hal Ashby, has affected a restrained, understated style to match the subtlety and precision of Sellers's performance. No one seems to know what to do with the allegorical undertone of Jerzy Kosinski's script, but as a whole this 1979 film maintains a fine level of wit, sophistication, and insight. Read full review

Gary Arnold

The fragile satric fable seemed to defy adaptation. But despite its shortcomings, director Hal Ashby managed to transplant the undernourished narrative with remarkable success. [08 Feb 1980, p.D1]

Jay Scott

Jerzy Kosinski's witty but slim novel was based on a witty but thin conceit, and Hal Ashby's film of that novel is equally witty, equally thin. [09 Feb 1980]

Staff (Not Credited)

Sellers's performance—as the innocent neuter figure who rises accidentally to political power on the strength of vacant homilies—is remarkable. But Ashby's direction is marred by the same softness that made The Last Detail and Coming Home so morally bland. Read full review