Lay the Favorite
RADiUS-TWC | Release Date: December 7, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
38
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
9
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 6, 2012
A small and not particularly ambitious movie, but it's pleasing and exceptionally well made. It was directed by Stephen Frears, and while it's not up there with his best - "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Queen," "High Fidelity," "Cheri" - Lay the Favorite lavishes the same attention on the personal, on relationships, and, like most Frears films, it puts a woman at the center of the story. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithDec 7, 2012
Frears has a lot of fun with the bad tempers and high spirits of this crew of adrenaline junkies, and though the story falls a little flat, the script is sprinkled with dry wit. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 4, 2012
On autopilot from beginning to end, Lay the Favorite feels like sitcom blown up to big-screen proportions. The laughs aren't raucous or numerous, the character development is sketchy at best, and the insider's perspective on bookies and gambling is superficial. Read full review
60
Total FilmKate StablesDec 2, 2012
A classy cast and Frears' light touch can't help this innocent abroad dramedy into the winner's enclosure. More jeopardy, less laboured larking, and it could've romped home. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinDec 5, 2012
At best, Lay The Favorite registers as cartoon sociology, but the film's featherweight charms dissipate whenever it moves away from the world of gambling and devotes time to go-nowhere subplots involving Hall's bland romance with Jackson, or Willis' troubled but fundamentally healthy marriage to Zeta-Jones. Read full review
40
NPRScott TobiasDec 7, 2012
Adapted from a comic thriller by Carl Hiaasen, South Florida's day-glo answer to Elmore Leonard, the film missed the fizzy, beach-friendly fun of Hiaasen's work, and wound up playing the comedy and the suspense at half-speed. It couldn't keep up with its own protagonist. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 6, 2012
Romance and capers exist in Lay the Favorite, they just aren't played well. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichDec 4, 2012
Lay the Favorite is frenzied without being funny. Like Judy Holliday on a particularly manic day, Hall tears from scene to scene with a bubbly effervescence that is technically impressive yet increasingly exhausting. Read full review
40
EmpireAngie ErrigoDec 2, 2012
Particularly disappointing given the names involved, it's only mildly amusing at best, and more often downright tedious. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 2, 2012
Stephen Frears is a supremely accomplished director, but perhaps there was little he could do with this garbled and unsatisfying story about gambling. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 2, 2012
The comedy just isn't that funny and the enterprise never finds an exact tone. Read full review
40
VarietyJustin ChangDec 2, 2012
Rebecca Hall's enjoyably bubbly lead performance lends the picture an occasional frisson of amusement. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 6, 2012
The movie is a bust, and, as usual in these situations, it is easier to say how than why, and best to say as little as possible, cut one's losses and move on. Read full review
30
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonDec 4, 2012
Screeches and scrambles from scene to scene with manic sitcom energy, much like the cherished pet hamster of one of its characters. Read full review
25
The PlaylistJohn LichmanDec 6, 2012
By the end of the film it seems that even Frears has given up. Lay The Favorite places a bet but comes up empty with a comedy that won't make you smirk, with a gaggle of characters and actors who bounce and riff with very little rhyme or reason. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneDec 6, 2012
Hollywood celebrities romping around in a candy-colored Alexa-shot criminal underworld, pretty much as a means of passing time. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 6, 2012
One of those factors must have settled upon the unlucky shoulders of Stephen Frears, who certainly has the pedigree to go all the way. And yet, he stumbles so badly with Lay the Favorite, his comic adaptation of Beth Raymer's memoir, that one is left wondering what could possibly have gone wrong. Read full review
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