C'mon C'mon
A24 | Release Date: November 19, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 10, 2022
While it’s fully grounded as a family portrait, overlaid on it still is that type of cosmic optimism which makes Mills’s work so lovely. I’m not even sure we fully deserve it, but it would be sheer masochism to turn it down. Read full review
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyDec 3, 2021
C’mon C’mon is a great big bear hug wrapped in celluloid. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonNov 22, 2021
To imagine the future, one must consider the past and be active in the present. C’mon C’mon is about the present, and how precious it truly is. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloNov 18, 2021
C’mon C’mon is the kind of movie that invites reflection. It’s not building towards a larger cinematic event or full of explosions. It’s a sincere drama about relationships, told from the perspectives of different members of one family. Read full review
100
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 3, 2021
Poetic and bittersweet, Cmon Cmon is a special film, one that asks us to recognize the mistakes we make, the people we wound, the feelings we hurt, and to maybe give ourselves a break in the process and hold on for what better future tomorrow may bring. Read full review
95
TheWrapCarlos AguilarSep 3, 2021
The character complexities grow out of Mills’ divinely extraordinary writing. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienNov 24, 2021
The film finds a raw beauty in the wonders and heartbreaks of everyday life. It’s a humble portrait of a family’s deepening connections supported by a number of cinematic pleasures — expert sound design and cinematography; touching performances by Norman and Hoffman; and a tremendous showing from Joaquin Phoenix, operating at a register he’s rarely found before. It’s a career best for him — lovely, empathetic, humane. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 22, 2021
Going into C’mon C’mon, you may think you know exactly what it’s going to be. Coming out, you’ll probably see that you were mostly right, but that you also got a million little firefly flashes of feeling you weren’t expecting. And that right there is the Mike Mills touch. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 18, 2021
If you’re up for going with the fascinating flow of a mercurial tale, this distinctive feature by Mike Mills may be just the ticket. Read full review
90
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 17, 2021
C’mon C’mon is a tender and turbulent melodrama that amplifies its power with a documentary current. The result is a film of an extraordinary amplitude; it’s both poised and frenetic, contemplative and active, heartily sentimental and astringently contentious, intensively intimate and expansively world-embracing, exactingly composed and wildly spontaneous. Read full review
90
IGNMatthew DoughertyNov 10, 2021
Writer-director Mike Mills gets the very best from Joaquin Phoenix by pairing him with the young Woody Norman. Their pitch-perfect chemistry enlivens this quiet road drama about the perspectives of our youth with emotionality that won’t leave a dry eye in the house. Read full review
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 9, 2021
C’mon C’mon is a gentle drama, but its deep emotional wellspring is mitigated by how wise it is about what impossible little monsters kids can be when they’re acting out. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 8, 2021
Mills makes this genre feel new and insightful, as if he’s one of only a few filmmakers who has tackled the complex dynamic between adult and child. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleTrace SauveurNov 24, 2021
This is far from the first movie about the perpetual struggle of relating to other people; it’s not even Mills’ first stab at it. But C’mon C’mon is so lovingly assembled and insightful in its thematic concerns that it feels like he could keep returning to that well and find something just as essential there every time. Read full review
89
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganOct 5, 2021
In amplifying the diverse voices of American children through the film’s radio vérité subplot, C’mon C’mon proves that kids have some pretty insightful advice to impart, if only we’d just listen. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 21, 2021
Full of nuance and understanding, C’mon C’mon meets a family in crisis and proceeds to hold them in its gentle hands. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 30, 2021
Phoenix and Hoffman really sell C’mon, C’mon, settling into “siblings” with such ease that even their phone conversations have a lived-in familiarity Read full review
88
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 24, 2021
Anyone who’s been a parent will find C’mon C’mon memorable, even transporting. Anyone who’s ever thought about being a parent might find it even more so. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 22, 2021
Johnny’s tentative dip into family life artfully captures the tedium, terror and confounding ecstasy of parenthood, but it more eloquently conveys the pain and discovery involved in simply trying to do one’s best. Read full review
88
ABC NewsPeter TraversNov 12, 2021
No Joker in sight as the stellar and always surprising Joaquin Phoenix shows his tender side in this bracing, bittersweet family dramedy from Mike Mills, whose movie is a quiet thing, but with a delicate, soulful magic you won’t soon forget. Read full review
85
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiNov 19, 2021
There's something about a Mike Mills film that feels like it's gently caressing the hair out of your face and kissing you on the forehead: a softness, a wistfulness that acknowledges how hard reality can be while tucking you into bed. While "C'mon C'mon" can't protect you from the world, it can at the very least hold your hand as it tries to figure out the path forward too. Read full review
83
Original-CinKim HughesNov 29, 2021
Those ambivalent towards children may find the film positively tedious. Those in tune with its up-close storytelling and gentle pace may find much to enjoy. Read full review
83
The Film StageMichael FrankOct 14, 2021
More movies could use the genuine kindness and comfort Mills provides with his stories. He’s become an auteur concerned solely with humanness. He gets his audience to shed earnest tears, both happy and sad. There’s something special about that, about Mills, and about C’mon C’mon. Read full review
83
ConsequenceJesse HassengerOct 4, 2021
Even if C’mon C’mon occasionally feels like navel-gazing, it’s too open-hearted and generous of spirit to miss. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 4, 2021
Another rich creation in Mills' bittersweet, gently profound collisions of art and life. Read full review
80
Little White LiesCharles BramescoDec 3, 2021
The tone never defines the stakes in such grave terms, but that’s the key to the potency of Mills’ cinema: life’s pivotal turns come in idle moments, from inconspicuous sources. All it takes is the willingness to listen. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyDec 3, 2021
C’mon C’mon is certainly heartfelt, but it lacks the lovely levity that defined Mills’s earlier films. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 23, 2021
Movies may be artifice, but in the best-made films you never really notice that they’re faking it. They feel real, lived-in, recognizable, whether in space or on a speeding bus that can’t slow down or inside a cramped apartment. C’mon C’mon feels real. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsNov 22, 2021
Deeply felt sincerity of the kind that Mills offers can be a tough pill. You kind of have to be in the mood. But this isn’t a film that works despite those excesses. Instead, it makes a case for them. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJessica KiangNov 19, 2021
If its rueful, midlife nostalgia doesn’t carry quite the same current of vibrant, urgent empathy as “20th Century Women” or “Beginners,” the small, polished pebbles of wisdom it unearths are still a pleasure to observe as they’re sent skimming across the surface of a delicate, compassionate film. Read full review
80
Time OutZach LongNov 17, 2021
Mike Mills delivers a naturalistic and unconventional homage to the bond between children and adults. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 3, 2021
C’mon C’mon proves plenty poignant, but it’s less entertaining than it might have been. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 3, 2021
It’s a wispy yet insightful and emotionally satisfying film. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 29, 2021
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill character study. It is a smartly conceived and beautifully executed meditation on the co-existing pain and pleasure, complexity and fragility of human existence. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 23, 2021
This is a droll and extremely well-acted tale of a family in crisis, and in progress. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrNov 17, 2021
C’mon C’mon doesn’t really go anywhere in particular. It’s a meandering experience, but purposefully so. And it’s the kind of film that makes you want to leave the theater and ask the big, cheesy, sincere questions of strangers, family, anyone really. Read full review
71
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 22, 2021
Come for Phoenix, stay for Phoenix and maybe also Norman and Hoffman, the latter of whom bounces off of both her co-stars with a nervy charm. But everything else? C’mon. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 16, 2021
Mills’ core insight remains the same in every film: We’re all screwed up to some degree, all constantly improvising, all doing the best we can with relatively few guidelines. That’s not especially innovative or profound, perhaps, but seeing it refracted through a connection that movies tend to ignore lends it a certain sparkle. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 3, 2021
The results are a bit more wishy-washy than usual. If Mills’ films are typically aimed at the intersection where the personal and the universal collide, this one can be unspecific in a way that drifts toward vagueness. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonNov 14, 2021
C’mon C’mon admirably doesn’t indulge in heartstring-tugging pathos, but the film suffers from a certain shapelessness. Read full review
60
EmpireHanna FlintDec 2, 2021
Phoenix, Hoffman and Norman, especially, amuse and move with their relatable performances in Mills’ sweet drama. It’s nicely visualised but can feel unnecessarily long in places. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 8, 2021
It’s an impressively contrived film, almost a machine for winning awards, a monochrome reverie of midlife yearning. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 18, 2021
C’mon C’mon is a nice movie about characters who are so nice that I almost feel bad for not being nicely disposed toward them or this movie, even with Joaquin Phoenix as the guy and Gaby Hoffmann as the sister. Read full review
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