Irresistible
Focus Features | Release Date (Streaming): June 26, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
23
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJul 6, 2020
The final impression is of a thesis only partially expanded into satisfactory dramedy, but, thanks to casting in depth and good writing on a line-by-line basis, Irresistible never feels like a chore. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJun 28, 2020
Whether Irresistible is the movie we “need” in such testing times is open to debate, with some already accusing Stewart of having gone soft. But as a non-partisan response to the craziness of “this system, the way we elect people” (which is indeed “terrifying and exhausting”), it gets my vote. Read full review
60
CNNBrian LowryJun 25, 2020
Jon Stewart resurfaces with a politically savvy directorial effort, Irresistible, that's a bit too heavy-handed to live up to its title. Delving into the corrosive influence of money on politics, Stewart's second film exhibits passion for its topic and cleverly registers an important point before it's over, but labors too much getting there. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 24, 2020
It’s perfectly entertaining as you’re watching, but when it’s over, you might not feel any smarter—or humbler—than you did going in. Read full review
60
EmpireJimi FamurewaJun 23, 2020
Scabrous, watchable and deceptively provocative, Jon Stewart’s political parable may be slightly out of step with the political reality of 2020 — but Carell and Byrne do enough to earn your VOD vote. Read full review
60
IGNZaki HasanJun 22, 2020
Stewart’s goals are muddied by his approach, leaving us with a work that has a few pieces of wisdom to offer and a few laughs scattered throughout, but ultimately feels as inconsequential as the TV talking heads it’s trying to critique. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanJun 22, 2020
Irresistible scores points yet feels behind the curve. You wish it were a bold satirical bulletin, or maybe just Stewart’s pricelessly amusing version of a Christopher Guest movie. Instead, the film is a lot like a politician: It makes a big show of leading the viewer, but without rocking the boat. Read full review
55
TheWrapSteve PondJun 25, 2020
Stewart’s whole career is based on the idea that political commentary and humor go together. Yes, they do – but as Irresistible shows, they do it better when they’re in the moment. Read full review
50
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsJul 1, 2020
Its preference is for plucking the lowest hanging fruit and, more urgently, letting its own audience off the hook. Though Irresistible occasionally lands a point—a soul surfaces briefly, thanks to Cooper—the movie ultimately doesn’t have the guts to be the movie it needs to be. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 29, 2020
To be fair, Irresistible picks up in the final quarter, with the aid of a clever twist that whistles in from nowhere. We get an assortment of different endings, each undercutting the last. It’s as if this dozy film has woken up, belatedly, to its comic responsibilities and opportunities. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJun 24, 2020
If this misleadingly titled movie is meant to be a whimsical Capra-esque fantasy, as the production notes suggest, then why does it make such a show of its topical relevance? If it’s meant to lay bare the realities of the system, as the production notes also suggest, then why does it feel so toothless and inconsequential? Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 23, 2020
This doesn’t have the wit or warmth of “Swing Vote” or the mean-spirited political currency of “Veep.” Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJun 22, 2020
In a world where a morning tweet can feel as dusty as the Dead Sea Scrolls by nightfall, it almost seems like madness to try to capture this current political moment on film. Read full review
50
SlateSam AdamsJun 22, 2020
Irresistible might be a movie for the moment before or the moment after, but it feels entirely out of step with the one it’s in. Read full review
50
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferJun 22, 2020
It’s easier to make pandering jokes about how liberals can’t break through to working-class white voters than actually put in the work to understand their full humanity. Without such effort, Stewart does not just repeat the mistakes of his characters. He magnifies them. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJun 22, 2020
A Capra-esque moral comedy that unfolds with all the subtlety of sky writing and none of the same panache, “Irresistible” is a perverse bid for clarity that feels like it was left behind like a relic from some long-distant past. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jun 22, 2020
When the wisdom being imparted is this conventional, you better find a dramatically or comedically satisfying way to package it. Stewart hasn’t. Read full review
42
The Film StageJordan RaupJun 22, 2020
This tedious film’s biggest issues don’t lie with its simplification of politics or often taking the feel-good easy route, but rather how flat the comedy lands. This in part due to how weakly formed its characters are across the board, as well as the peculiar tonal approach that is taken. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenAug 24, 2020
Best of all is the reliably brilliant Rose Byrne, whose scathing Republican strategist turns up to torment Zimmer. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 25, 2020
The film, streaming on demand, brings old news that can’t hold a flickering candle to the events of our flabbergasting moment, and a clever twist doesn’t redeem long passages of gratingly broad and awkward humor. Read full review
40
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJun 25, 2020
It feels like an artifact from a particularly contentious past, a stale corn chip trampled into Party-convention carpeting. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJun 22, 2020
The film tries to scale a gargantuan mountain of a subject – the broken voting system – and just keeps slipping repeatedly down the sides Read full review
40
UproxxMike RyanJun 22, 2020
Irresistible could have been something that was just a pleasant enough, throwaway comedy – and it feels like that for most of its running time. If only Stewart read his own word, “resist,” and resisted that ending – that urge to try to turn this movie into something it just isn’t. Read full review
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