Down and Out in Beverly Hills

Perhaps I have made the movie sound too serious... So let me just say that Down and Out in Beverly Hills made me laugh longer and louder than any film I've seen in a long time. Read full review

What's so funny about Down and Out In Beverly Hills is not its moral imperative to appreciate life's simple, enduring pleasures. True, we get that message, and we appreciate it, but we already know that motto even if we don't live by it. No, what's funny is director Mazursky's extraordinarily fine eye and ear for capturing the way the wealthy residents of Beverly Hills walk, talk, dress and think. Read full review

As a comedy of manners it has a dependably keen aim, with its most wicked barbs leavened by Mr. Mazursky's obvious fondness for his characters. Read full review

Peppy and pleasurable, this is one of the most sheerly beautiful comedies ever shot. Mazursky isn't afraid of uproarious silliness: there are some dizzying slapstick routines that reach their peak when a small black-and-white Border collie takes over.

Once you overlook the laborious contrivance of Jerry's background, Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a sharp, sweet comedy of affluent manners. [31 Jan 1986]

There probably isn't anyone working in movies today who could have done more with this material than writer-director Paul Mazursky does. In Down and Out, he finds humor in those contemporary issues about which most people haven't quite resolved their feelings. This can lead him into dangerous territory: AIDS, anorexia, homosexuality and even "We Are the World" all figure in Down and Out's unusual comedy. [21 Nov 1999, p.60]

A howl from start to finish. Read full review

On the basically farcical level where it chooses to stay, it is a funny and likable movie Read full review

It’s a loving caricature of the nouveau riche (Beverly Hills variety) and although it is more of a comedy of manners than a well-developed story, there are enough yocks and bright moments to make it a thoroughly enjoyable outing. Read full review

For all its genuinely funny moments and its mix of outrageousness and insights, Down and Out remains curiously unsatisfying in the way it resolves the Nolte character. Read full review

Like Renoir, Mazursky has warm affection for his supermaterialists and his tattered tramp. The joke and wisdom of this movie is that they need each other. Joke and wisdom don't always interlock perfectly, but the movie has more than its share of savvy comedy and sharp social perception. [03 Feb 1986, p.68]

Amusing and well acted. [16 May 2010, p.50]

It's too civilized by half and never quite funny enough. [31 Jan 1986, p.D1]

Down and Out suggests the kind of conflict of values that the fish-out-of-water story depends on: wealthy Dave is a workaholic, but Jerry doesn't want to work; Dave is a striver, but Jerry's given up. But the idea is never really pursued. Read full review

Paul Mazursky hasn’t only remade Jean Renoir’s sublime 1931 Boudu Saved From Drowning: he’s yuppified it, inverting virtually every meaning until the film becomes a celebration of the crassest kind of materialism. Read full review

It betokens some kind of desperation (or perhaps the fact that this was produced by Disney's adult offshoot) that the comedy rests increasingly on the cute antics of the family dog. Read full review