Duck Season
Esperanto Filmoj | Release Date: March 10, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boston GlobeTy Burr
It's one of the small, pitch-perfect treasures of the movie year. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A quiet, loopy gem, Duck Season is a goofball celebration of old friends, new beginnings, adolescent freedom, and baked goods laced with a little something extra. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunJohn Anderson
Almost everything that happens - and almost everything happens within Flama's apartment - is food for dry humor and very recognizable humanity. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Duck Season unfolds with a slaphappy logic that only looks casual. In fact, every unfinished conversation and banal picture on the wall (one's of ducks) matters as four little people share one memorable little day. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Inside this small canvas - almost the entire film unfolds in the one apartment - Mr. Eimbcke turns each character into an epic. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A highly satisfying miniature. Its subject may be adolescence, and some of its pot-smoking, kick-back humor is adolescent too--in a good way. But the film's calm and witty visual rhythm offers a rueful awareness of time passing and of time wasted, in ways that people tend not to appreciate fully until long after they've wasted it. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke got his start in short films and documentaries, and his first feature reveals a gift for concision: It doesn't overexert itself trying to come to big conclusions about these characters, and even the comedic scenes settle for gentle quirks over broad guffaws. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
The lovely, unpredictable comedy Duck Season marks the arrival of a fresh talent in writer-director Fernando Eimbcke. His script is vibrant with unforced humanist observations, the performances are natural and endearing. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Sometimes a film about nothing can be a film about everything; a film without overwhelmingly dramatic events can delight you more than an outsized epic. The sly and disarming Duck Season is such a film. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Director Fernando Eimbcke, in an extraordinary debut, never expresses contempt for his characters. By examining their inner lives with compassion and respect, he inspires us to do the same. Read full review
75
PremiereEthan Alter
Some viewers will wonder what exactly it is they are supposed to be laughing at, but those that do find themselves on the movie's wavelength will enjoy its observational approach to comedy. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke attempts to give this story a melancholy overlay, but its main interest is in its confirmation that teenagers are pretty much the same everywhere. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Slow but charming film. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
It's about the kind of kids who could never sit still enough, unfortunately, for a movie that perfectly captures the frustrations, longings, obsessions and torments of the awkward years before manhood. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
A hilariously deadpan black-and-white slacker comedy, Duck Season is sort of like "Wayne's World" directed by a Mexican Jim Jarmusch. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Not very much really happens in Duck Season, but in its rich details, it remembers how absorbing and endless every single day can seem when you're 14. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleNeva Chonin
The beauty of Duck Season is its insistence that profound human experiences can arrive slowly, in incremental packages, scattered over the course of an average Sunday. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
The spirits of Jim Jarmusch and Kevin Smith hover over this breezy slacker comedy set on a comatose Sunday afternoon. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Warm, winning and clever. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The fullness of Duck Season is in direct proportion to its smallness; its modesty makes it bloom. Read full review
70
VarietyDavid Rooney
This slight but appealing film's funky eccentricity feels a little contrived at times. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Duck Season is not (yet) the work of a great filmmaker, but it's the kind of movie in which a fledgling director traps his talent in a bottle and saves it for next time. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Duck Season is something quite different, capable of gratifying film snobs and regular viewers alike. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Not in recent memory has a movie so short – 90 minutes on the nose – been so stagnant and stubbornly slow to build. And that's exactly the point. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The characters' behavior isn't always believable, and the jerky rhythm takes some getting used to (there may be more attitude here than observation). But the defiant absence of any conventional plot has a cumulative charm. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Shot in silvery black-and-white, Duck Season is not charmless, just insubstantial. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPhil Hall
Sometimes Duck Season is amusing. More often, though, it is boring and icky. Read full review
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