If Lucy Fell

Given these flaws, If Lucy Fell should be a chore, and yet I kept catching myself having a good time. Read full review

While the picture periodically skids into sentimentality and characters lapse into schtick, its good-natured quality and winning cast sustain our sympathy. Read full review

Unlike glossier renderings of twentysomething love, Eric Schaeffer's If Lucy Fell at least elicits the heartfelt goodwill of a messy homemade valentine. [8 March 1996]

Comedic touches aside (nearly all of which belong to Ben Stiller who's off on another, far more interesting, planet as the genuinely goofy Bwick), If Lucy Fell strives hard to be a serious romantic comedy for the Nineties. It almost succeeds. Schaeffer trips up, though, when he lets his philosophies get the better of him. Nothing stops If Lucy Fell faster than its mordant underpinnings, cute though they may be. It's “The Best Date Movie of the Nineties,” number 224 in a series. Collect 'em all. Read full review

After My Life's in Turnaround, one could reasonably expect something more than this -- a Generation X picture that takes angst to absurd levels -- from Eric Schaeffer. Unfortunately, what we are saddled with is a whiney, talky, stagnant movie that's more pretentious than romantic, and more dull than funny. If Lucy Fell trips early on, and keeps stumbling for most of its ninety-two minute running length. Read full review

How many dead spots does it take to kill the genuinely funny moments in a romantic comedy? This question gets a severe workout in writer-actor-director Eric Schaeffer's second film: an alternately charming, predictable, hilarious and tedious exercise that holds your interest for about an hour. [8 March 1996]

Even if these characters are obliged to waste their time getting to that point, no one else is. Read full review

Take a ridiculous premise, marry it to a situation that is bound to resolve itself in the most obvious way, and keep the whole thing rolling with juvenile gags. What do you have? Television. Or “If Lucy Fell,” whose writer-director, Eric Schaeffer, certainly knows television. Or knew it. Read full review

Schaeffer thickens the general air of narcissism by directing Parker's Lucy essentially as a female version of himself, with the same puckish sense of humor and undertone of self-pity. Stiller's Bwick is an entertaining invention, an art-world variation on The-Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince though he, too, turns out to be mainly a foil to Joe's wonderfulness. Clearly, Eric Schaeffer has at least one really big fan. [8 March 1996, p.40]

Stay home and watch Friends. It's cheaper, funnier and mercifully shorter. [8 March 1996, p.08]

'IF Lucy Fell" off the Brooklyn Bridge, as she threatens to do early in this movie, the rest of us would be spared 93 minutes of annoying drivel, save a few - very few - funny moments. [8 March 1996, p.3E]

Quick, get the bug repellent, it’s another infestation of clueless, chatty, goofily dressed Gen Xers flitting around the scary idea of love! Read full review

There was more Allenesque potential in (Schaeffer's) earlier ``My Life's in Turnaround'' (directed with Donal Lardner Ward) than there is in this painfully cute concoction, which is about two old friends with a pact to leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. There are too many occasions when the viewer may wish they would just go ahead and jump. Read full review

It's not often you find this voluntary dimwittedness in a movie, but "If Lucy Fell" offers a depressing example in the case of Joe MacGonaughgill (Eric Schaeffer), one of the least appealing characters ever offered for the public's entertainment. Read full review

The jump gimmick sounds as if it might make a cute romantic movie. But If Lucy Fell has so little meat that it plays like a television sitcom that somehow grew into a feature-length movie. It's airy, fluffy and ultimately uninteresting. Read full review

Despite a respectable budget, a well-known cast, even a bona fide supermodel, "If Lucy Fell" is boring, depressing and unfunny. [7 March 1996]

From this, we can safely assume that Schaeffer is a nag and a pest, though after two films we still have little proof that he's a capable director. [8 March 1996, p.7G]

There came a time, during a screening of Eric Schaeffer's romantic comedy, when I knew exactly what would happen for the rest of the movie, and knew it wasn't going to get any better along the way. The depression was compounded when I realized If Lucy Fell had another hour to go. [8 March 1996, p.10]

This week's excruciatingly dismal dating comedy. [8 March 1986]

A contemptible excuse for a romantic comedy. Read full review