Men, Women & Children
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: October 1, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
38
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
19
Negative:
12
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 2, 2014
At times Reitman (adapting Chad Kultgen’s 2011 novel) can be a bit preachy and scolding about the pitfalls of surrendering one’s “RL” (real life) to one’s online existence, but just about any parent or any teenager seeing this film will empathize with any number of the interconnecting plot lines. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 13, 2014
Jason Reitman's new film skillfully navigates through the personal melodramas of many characters with a nice sense of balance and a sharp appreciation of generational differences. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 13, 2014
There's enough compelling drama here to overcome elements of artifice. Men, Women & Children feels meaningful although perhaps not profound. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 30, 2014
What elevates Men, Women & Children considerably above a dramatized (and occasionally over-dramatized) lecture on the dehumanizing aspects of the Internet is the consistently high caliber of acting (including, yes, Sandler) and spot-on narration by Emma Thompson. Read full review
67
HitfixGregory EllwoodSep 13, 2014
The problem is there is just too much going on here for Reitman to pull that off and after an auspicious start, it all just, sadly, falls flat. Read full review
60
Total FilmKate StablesJan 9, 2015
Reitman’s topical and melancholy drama is commendably ambitious. But its OTT plotting and alarmist tone make it a Reefer Madness for the Instagram generation. Read full review
60
The GuardianHenry BarnesSep 13, 2014
A huge improvement on the muddled melodrama of Labor Day, Men, Women and Children is still a flawed Jason Reitman film. Its scope is too big, his ambitions too high. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 16, 2014
There’s a good movie to be made about the alienating effects of modern technology. In 2013, a little-seen indie called “Disconnect,” starring Jason Bateman, came closer than this well-intentioned failure, which has virtually no heart, humor, sense of place or central point of view. In trying to be a big, important movie, Men, Women & Children is about none of the above. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 16, 2014
The problem with Men, Women & Children — and it’s a big one — is that the movie isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 10, 2014
Men, Women & Children isn't a cartoon. It wants to be real, terribly. Instead, it's just terrible. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 9, 2014
To its credit, Men, Women & Children seems to allow for a rational middle ground between technophobic Luddites and the lamentably over-wired. It never turns down the moral panic entirely, but neither does it let it completely boil over. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyOct 6, 2014
Reitman is a witty filmmaker, but here he seems a little disconnected, too. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 2, 2014
Audiences could use a wise and probing movie about the meaning of our increasingly digital, techno-juiced lives.Men, Women & Children is about half that movie. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 2, 2014
It’s one of those multi-character morality plays — think “American Beauty” meets “Crash” — and it will play especially well to freaked-out parents, even as it distances itself from them by acknowledging that the kids (most of them, anyway) are all right. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 2, 2014
All of it is plausible, if one were to break the narrative into its component parts; together, though, those parts resemble "Babel" or "Crash" or other determinedly topical mosaics that end up falsifying their own concerns. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 1, 2014
The problem isn't so much what the film is saying but its shrill, alarmist tone. You don't have to be a sociological genius to look at all of us walking down the street like zombies, obliviously staring at our smartphones, and know that something's wrong. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreSep 30, 2014
There are a TV season’s worth of soap opera betrayals, melodramatic traumas and blundering efforts to learn from and escape this media miasma. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 30, 2014
Veering between alarmism and cautious reassurance — between technohysteria and shrugging, nothing-new-under-the-sun resignation — Men, Women & Children succumbs to the confusion it tries to illuminate. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangSep 13, 2014
This painfully well-meaning but largely unpersuasive bid for cross-generational understanding feels at once of-the-moment and too obvious by half, like a less overblown version of “Crash” for the information superhighway. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnSep 13, 2014
Men, Women and Children is so married to the idea of humanity's insignificance that it presents support for that argument with its very existence. Read full review
42
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 13, 2014
It's a shame Reitman goes down such a dull and tired road with his movie, because the cast give some really nice turns. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraDec 1, 2014
Both heavy-handed and ham-fisted, this is a self-important morality tale where you can see everyone's uppance coming long before it arrives. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriOct 5, 2014
The real problem is that the film doesn't know what to do with its depiction of life in the interconnected age. It’s a nothing movie. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 15, 2014
The first Reitman film to make the 36-year-old director seem about 400 years old. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 3, 2014
Both cautionary and comforting (yes, some kids today prefer conversation to cybersexting), Men, Women & Children is as anxious to seem contemporary as any after-school special. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloSep 30, 2014
While many of the individual storylines are ludicrously melodramatic, building toward emotional meltdowns (and one suicide attempt), it’s the cumulative fear and loathing of everything digital that crosses the line into absurdity. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 2, 2014
Men, Women & Children touches many nerves, but then pinches and twists them with its ham-handed approach to social commentary. I worry about Mr. Reitman, a filmmaker of consequence who is still too young to be so cosmic. Time to lighten up and come back down to Earth. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 1, 2014
A few steps further and Reitman might have turned Men, Women & Children into parody — at least that might have made for some laughs. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonSep 30, 2014
In 2014, Men, Women & Children feels like a sermon. It's obvious and mundane, "Chopsticks" pounded on the piano. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 2, 2014
Preacher Reitman won't be satisfied till we stomp our smartphones. LOL. WTF. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiOct 1, 2014
A potentially interesting premise is handled so badly that what might have been a provocative drama quickly and irrevocably devolves into the technological equivalent of the old anti-dope chestnut "Reefer Madness," squandering the efforts of a strong and talented cast struggling mightily to make something of the ridiculously trite material. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesOct 15, 2014
Not just narratively crude but aesthetically ugly, Men, Women & Children’s framing occasionally cuts characters off at the forehead, in effect lobotomizing them. I couldn’t think of a better metaphor for this brainless splotch of self-important scaremongering. Read full review
20
TheWrapJames RocchiOct 1, 2014
Reitman clearly wanted to create a mosaic of sharp-edged shards held together by the mortar of art; with Men, Women and Children, what he's delivered is a group of broken bits mired in the morass of pretension. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineChris CabinSep 29, 2014
Jason Reitman fails to take into account any of the positive endeavors enabled by social media, which will no doubt be used to promote and market his film. Read full review
10
The DissolveScott TobiasOct 2, 2014
To borrow a phrase from Patton Oswalt’s bit on a particularly monstrous fast-food creation, the film is “a failure pile in a sadness bowl.” Read full review
10
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 1, 2014
With Men, Women & Children and the equally laborious “Labor Day,” Reitman has gotten trapped amid the crumbling edifice of Hollywood. It’s turning him old before his time. Read full review
More From This Movie

38 Critic Reviews

6.3 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL