Life Itself
Amazon Studios | Release Date: September 21, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
21
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
8
Negative:
30
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 20, 2018
Life Itself starts out with great promise – a dizzying first act that creates the tapestry of a character’s life by offering a kaleidoscope of moments from his past. It’s poignant, effective, and punctuated by actions that are breathtakingly sudden and unexpected. However, after the strong beginning, the movie takes a conventional turn. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyDana SchwartzSep 20, 2018
Excellent performers are wasted, especially the criminally underutilized Mandy Patinkin and Annette Bening, both of whom appear in just bit parts. With far too much confidence but nothing to say, Life Itself lives up to the college-freshman affectedness of its own title. Read full review
50
Washington PostKristen Page-KirbySep 19, 2018
Movies should invite viewers in, taking them on a journey together with the characters on-screen. Unfortunately, Life Itself is less journey than lecture. Read full review
50
The Film StageJared MobarakSep 12, 2018
There’s too much going on. Maybe if Fogelman had a season of television to delve into these characters’ connections and inject the vigor of Will’s chaotic mind into the quieter passages that follow, Life Itself could be great. Read full review
50
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 11, 2018
Fogelman clearly gets a thrill in constructing a tapestry full of one random tragedy after another (seriously, almost nothing good seems to happen to these people long term). And he also appears to love manipulating the audience’s emotions with these subsequent tragedies. Read full review
44
Paste MagazineWill LeitchSep 20, 2018
The movie is a shameless, relentless wreck. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerJan 2, 2019
Despite good moments and an ambition to reach for the profound, Life Itself settles for trite, sentimental and patience testing. A killer cast deserve better. Read full review
40
Time OutMichael GingoldSep 20, 2018
Lacking the grace and humor of the Fogelman-scripted Crazy Stupid Love, Life Itself gives its talented cast occasional affecting moments, but its thesis—life is full of pain that must be endured—is ultimately reflected by the experience of watching the film itself. Read full review
40
Screen DailyAllan HunterSep 11, 2018
Some of the wit and emotion strikes home and the longer we spend with individual characters the more their story resonates. Read full review
38
The Associated PressLindsey BahrSep 26, 2018
Nothing much in Life Itself feels like life itself. It is too polished, too winking, too big and too much to be all that relatable, even with a cast as appealing as this. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshSep 20, 2018
The worst thing about Life Itself is not that it is emotionally sadistic. It's just how much it wants to be emotionally sadistic, while missing the mark by a mile. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerSep 20, 2018
Because it’s emotionally manipulative, unashamedly contrived and outrageously sentimental. Lead actor Oscar Isaac doesn’t care a damn about that, mind you, giving a memorably heart-wrenching performance anyway. Read full review
38
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 20, 2018
Life Itself is a real downer when it comes to death: A few are so out-of-nowhere that it’s like the hipster version of the “Game of Thrones” Red Wedding. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloSep 11, 2018
Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself packs in enough narrative twists and turns to leave viewers with a sense of emotional whiplash. One tragedy bleeds into another so often that the events begin to blur. Read full review
33
ConsequenceCaroline SiedeSep 18, 2018
Though Life Itself is neither good nor “so bad it’s good,” it’s also such a bizarre, inexplicable film that it’s almost worth seeking out just to experience it for yourself. For those who want to watch a worthwhile family melodrama, however, just stick with This Is Us. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 19, 2018
Unreliability is a fascinating and tricky conceit for novelists and filmmakers. It should not be confused with bad writing. There is a lot of that here, and also, to confuse matters further, a lot of good acting. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaSep 18, 2018
Life Itself is one of the worst kind of bad movies, because it achieves nothing that it sets out to do. Read full review
30
VarietyJessica KiangSep 11, 2018
It is sentimental and sprawling, which are not necessarily bad things, but also manipulative and contrived, which very much are. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 11, 2018
It’s contrived at every turn and talky like a French film, though 100 percent American indie in its earnest conviction that it’s saying something of substance about the unpredictable roller coaster of life and love. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisSep 21, 2018
The rambling Life Itself is a multigenerational drama about the messiness of life, but the emotional impact of the movie gets lost in the messiness of its screenplay. And though there is not one subpar acting performance, the film itself comes off as an exercise in self-consciousness. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeAmelia NierenbergSep 21, 2018
Fogelman is familiar with the genre, having created the Emmy-nominated “This Is Us,” which has been deft enough in its treatment of loss to make it one of NBC’s most-watched shows. Life Itself fails to elicit the same sniffles, instead drowning its cast in a sticky, soggy script. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 20, 2018
It’s just something some gullible, poorly-read studio exec heard and thought, “I think I’ll spend Jeff Bezos’s millions on THAT.” The fool. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 20, 2018
Life Itself begins with a cinematic shell game, with Fogelman pulling a short con on the viewer for no discernible reason. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 20, 2018
Life Itself is an emotional mugging, not a movie. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 18, 2018
A vapid exercise in narrative kitsch that spans two languages and multiple decades and love stories. Read full review
25
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 11, 2018
Life Itself thinks you’re stupid. Or, if not stupid, unable to understand how a movie should work. It’s a movie made for people who can’t be trusted to understand any storytelling unless it’s not just spoon-fed but ladled on, piled high, and explained via montage and voiceover. Read full review
20
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 16, 2019
This stupid person’s idea of a clever movie is keen that we get the point, right down to providing an overbearing, hand-holding voiceover, which guides us through its multiple levels of plot contrivance as if the audience is a not particularly bright toddler. Read full review
20
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 10, 2019
he film's indulgences are so heart-on-sleeve that it's hard to differentiate watching it from hearing someone pitch their very bad screenplay ideas with no attempt to read the room. Read full review
20
VoxEmily VanDerWerffSep 26, 2018
The worst thing about Life Itself is how it can’t realize that it’s limited by its own point-of-view. It harps on the idea of unreliable narrators in literature, without seeming to understand either how the device is used or how it works or how literary critics have approached that idea throughout time. Read full review
20
Film Journal InternationalHarry HaunSep 20, 2018
Should there not be enough travail or unhappiness in your life, this dud’s for you. Read full review
20
SlateInkoo KangSep 19, 2018
The commitment of its all-star cast — which includes Oscar Isaac, Annette Bening, Mandy Patinkin, Antonio Banderas, Olivia Wilde, Olivia Cooke, and Samuel L. Jackson — can’t divert from the fact that its quills droop and sag, where they haven’t fallen off altogether. Behold the other North American flightless turkey. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 19, 2018
It all feels like a poorly constructed and overwrought Lifetime drama from a decade ago, albeit one featuring a shaggy dog dubbed “Fuckface.” Read full review
20
The GuardianGwilym MumfordSep 11, 2018
You rarely get the sense of Fogelman’s characters being complex figures with internal lives – instead they’re merely there to smile weakly through whatever trauma their sadistic creator puts them through. Read full review
15
The AtlanticDavid SimsSep 20, 2018
In Life Itself, everyone’s fate is in the hands of Fogelman, and he wields that power with terrible cruelty. Read full review
15
TheWrapRobert AbeleSep 20, 2018
If all you need from a love story are two people smiling at each other and a narrator saying they’re in love, then Life Itself is for you. If all you require to show the passage of years is a CG montage or some cheap makeup, then Life Itself is for you. If the only way you’ll know things are tough is if everyone dies, then Life Itself is for you. Read full review
0
L.A. WeeklyApril WolfeSep 20, 2018
The Crash-meets–Collateral Beauty false-gravitas joke of the year. Read full review
0
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 20, 2018
What hurts the most is the wholehearted dedication each of these actors brings to such truly horrendous material: they make Life Itself almost watchable – almost –but there’s no effective cure for this kidney stone of a movie. Please, please, just let it pass. Read full review
0
Slant MagazineDerek SmithSep 20, 2018
Despite its title, Life Itself doesn’t revel so much in the joys and travails of life as it does in the shameless emotional manipulation stemming from the ham-fisted tendencies of its own maker. Read full review
0
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 19, 2018
How do you rate a cinematic black hole that doesn’t deserve a single star? Do you simply give it five eyerolls? Better question: How does a movie, with all the talent in the world going for it, become a such a blithering botch job? Read full review
More From This Movie

21 Critic Reviews

5.5 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL