Friends with Money
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: April 7, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Holofcener possesses a genius for creating exquisitely realized characters who seem to have led full, rich, complicated lives before the film's first scene takes place, and will go on living complex, idiosyncratic existences long after they disappear from the screen. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she has four of the best actresses in Hollywood as the leads, especially Keener. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Smart, witty and alert to the buried resentments that poke through the shiny surface of affluence, Holofcener's film recognizes that money is the new sex. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Acutely perceptive and slyly quick-witted. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
For a film that feels so breezy on the surface, it's a surprisingly complex character study. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Holofcener writes with an ear for the rhythms and ridiculousness of real life, and her cast - to a man, and woman - embraces her words with subtlety and certitude. Friends With Money is gimmickless, and great. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A pitch-perfect ensemble comedy that burrows deep into the mind-set of white, upper middle-class Angelenos, anxious to strike the right balance among career, family, love life and money but never quite pulling it off. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Greatly appealing if not especially adventurous, either for its director or for her admirers. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The result is an exquisitely calibrated hypermodern comedy of manners. A quiet but devastating ensemble piece, both acerbic and sweet, "Friends" blends empathy and a great sense of comic timing with the richness of Holofcener's trademark take-no-prisoners observations. Read full review
80
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Holofcener's new film is extraordinary: it engages us from beginning to end without strong narrative, or narratives. It lives through the quality of Holofcener's dialogue and the performances that she has drawn from her actors. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
The only weak link here is Aniston's character – her Olivia, stuck in a holding pattern, feels like a holdover from Holofcener's previous, single-girl pictures, and Aniston underplays the role to the point of expressionlessness. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
There is also a manufactured symmetry, an every-gal's-got-issues roundness, an HBO sitcomitude to the movie that undercuts its own observational intelligence. Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
With the almost half-decade spaces between Holofcener's three features, one might (rather unreasonably, I admit) expect her to have sought to break wholly new ground in the interim. So she hasn't; nevertheless, Friends is well-crafted, intelligent, genuinely adult fare. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Aniston's best on-screen performance since "The Good Girl." Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Holofcener writes as well as Albert Brooks at his best, and her finesse with actors is as assured as James L. Brooks's on his TV and film projects from 20 and 30 years ago. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
While most of the film is well-written and acted, there are some difficulties. Aniston's Olivia is hard to figure. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's a movie of charm and insight, well-acted and carefully observed, but it's also one that lacks any real heights to offset the generic competence that characterizes it. There's no real drama to follow, no surprises of sufficient magnitude to enliven the experience. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Holofcener's work is character and dialogue-driven, with a keen sense of prickly female competitiveness and intimacy that a man couldn't, and probably wouldn't, dare portray. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Turns out to be amusing and astute, a smart observation on the ups and downs of female friendships. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Stealing the show is Jane, whose rage-fueled rants and scarcely concealed mutterings are loaded with sarcastic bon mots that are delivered to the hilt by McDormand. Read full review
70
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Holofcener gets the milieu beguilingly right, but the abrupt ending leaves you wanting more. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
If Friends With Money is about the meaning of success in a town obsessed with wealth, it is also, more universally, about our defining incompleteness, and the sad, uproarious inconclusiveness of life. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
In her third feature Nicole Holofcener leapfrogs between characters with wit and grace, gathering them in various clusters and adroitly showing how money or the lack thereof really does inflect their lives and interactions. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
This is a dense and sophisticated work about mortality, materialism, madness, jealousy and pity. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
Smart, patient and ruefully funny... Yet because the film never digs too far into any single person's world, it doesn't build toward much. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The four ladies of Friends With Money are people I wouldn't want to ride the bus with (not that some of them would be caught dead on public transportation). They're whiners with little self-knowledge. Perhaps that's what holds them together, but it's not pretty. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Most crucially, we don't learn what brought the four women together; Olivia's so much younger than the others that there's no reason to think they'd ever have befriended her. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Friends With Money doesn't quite snap into focus. It just floats along-an agreeable comedy of manners with actors you like to hang out with. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
As its title jokingly implies, this is a more grown-up version of Aniston's long- running TV vehicle--complete with the star herself as eternal ingenue. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Anger is the rocket fuel of drama. Of the four women in Nicole Holofcener's Friends With Money, only Frances McDormand's Jane is flamingly angry, and she's the most vivid character in the group.
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
While this doesn't add up to much more than 'It's good to be rich and have friends', it's entertaining, with some choice performances and the laugh-out-loud quotient of a good sketch show. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
There's a self-loathing at the center of Friends with Money that makes it a tad unpalatable, as well as a sameness, a dependence on cliche, that makes it seem trite. Read full review
50
Film ThreatDon R. Lewis
Entertaining and highly watchable but in the end, it just feels trite. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The cast is terrific, the movie isn't... It all plays like the pilot for a series that wasn't picked up. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie lacks the warmth and edge of the two previous features ("Walking and Talking" and "Lovely and Amazing"). It seems to be more of an idea than a story. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The film is likable, with some funny moments and recognizable human conflicts. But the origin of the women's friendship is not explained, and the nature of Olivia's problems is not examined or taken very seriously, making her seem inexplicably lost and shallow. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Qualifies as a mild success. It's an easy picture to like, even if it's not exactly satisfying. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The trouble with Holofcener's scheme is that the center of the movie is dead. Olivia has no drives or hopes or powerful regrets. She has nothing to say, and Aniston does most of her acting with her lower lip. Read full review
50
Washington PostTeresa Wiltz
Nothing much happens here, and even less is resolved. You could make an argument that that's how life is, unresolved, but as a film, it makes for frustrating viewing, particularly when plot threads with the potential to bust open the story are left hanging. Read full review
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