Happy Endings
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: July 15, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
9
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
It's possible that Maggie Gyllenhaal will never become a major star, but there isn't an American actress in movies today who holds the screen with as much deep-seated soul. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Why aren't there more American movies like this? I mean smart, unpretentious, sophisticated, un-condescending and cheap. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Happy Endings is unabashedly sentimental (cheekily couched in a black-comic guise), with Roos acting as a sort of benevolent god over his characters. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Bills itself as a comedy but unfolds as the drollest of dramas, an extended-family album for the age of abortion, adoption and donor sperm. It's a cheeky story about turning the other cheek. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
There are marvelous moments and dull ones. The best asset is first-rate acting; the worst liability is Roos's overuse of cinematic gimmicks. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The film is entertaining if contrived. It is not as cleverly structured as Roos' best ensemble comedy, "The Opposite of Sex," which also co-starred Kudrow. But it does have humorous moments. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Extremely pleasurable and well worth seeing. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A real audience pleaser, so long as that audience is mentally agile and adult, for it comes at you from odd angles and features three distinct story lines and 10 main characters. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
When all is said and done, Roos treats his characters and his audience to an unblushingly sentimental, conciliatory ending of the kind that ordinarily makes me feel as though I'm being played for a sucker. I wept on demand and went home happy. Read full review
70
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Complicated? Yes. Potentially heavy? Sure. But it's also highly engrossing and, in a dark way, ultimately rather sweet. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Roos' sly, throwaway insights into the ways people deceive and undermine themselves are both ruefully funny and painfully on the mark. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The acting in this ensemble is of such a high order that the movie simply takes you in and makes you feel these lives as real. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Much of the film is funny and alive. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's fine ensemble work, but you nevertheless grow itchy wishing Roos had focused it a little better. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Roos does an admirable job balancing the tragedy and comedy, but he bogs down every character with so much baggage that it's impossible to render them honestly without the captions. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Way too long, too convoluted and too peppered with title cards...Even so, it's hard to dislike Don Roos' "Magnolia"-inspired triptych of interconnected comic tales about lies, sex and video. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The cast is strong. Kudrow and Gyllenhaal provide the movie's emotional center. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Maintains a certain level of intrigue, and occasionally bursts into life. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Some of the characters are interesting, but their situations are not. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The film rambles, but rambling with the mischievous Roos is still a tricky and winning proposition. Read full review
60
Film ThreatJeremy Mathews
Roos creates a slate of interesting characters who find themselves in unexpected situations that lead to realistic--and in their own way, happy--endings. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A protracted parade of woefully familiar motifs from the Amerindie playbook, Happy Endings comes off like an undernourished Paul Thomas Anderson wannabe. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
There aren't a lot of laughs in Happy Endings, and those that sneak in are pretty wry. There's no comedic snap either, and while that seems not to be the point, humor might have helped with the film's often-sluggish pacing. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
There are pleasing outcomes for almost everyone in Happy Endings, and that's not good news. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
As Frank, a widower who falls for his son's conniving would-be girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Arnold is a revelation. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The themes are about the power and consequences of sex, but the stories are too glib and episodic to leave any impression. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
A tart-coated sugar pill of a movie. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The sensibility is Southern California Witless, and the jokey intertitles that periodically take up half the 'Scope frames ("This is a comedy. Sort of.") are even more smarmy than the characters. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The kind of self-conscious puzzle picture in which characters behave in ways that serve the plot but in no way resemble things that actual human beings would be likely to do. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Roos suffers from fallen archness in his interminable new movie Happy Endings. He wants to be mischievous and ambitious and "human," all at the same time. He ends up with delusions of tragicomic grandeur that leave an audience fed up and dissatisfied. Read full review
30
Village VoiceBen Kenigsberg
Roos forecasts and explains every development with a title card, a device not unlike having someone yammering in your ear throughout the entire feature run time. In a more self-effacing director's commentary, he might have asked us, at least, to forgive the pun. Read full review
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