Now and Then

Director Lesli Linka Glatter (NYPD Blue, Twin Peaks) gets nice performances from her young cast, which includes some of the best little actresses working today. Their adult counterparts are fine too. [20 Oct 1995, p.22]

It's not particularly deep, but it's a good-natured, sprightly comedy that ought to find its most appreciative audience among preteen girls. Read full review

Now and Then will be deeply felt by women, and there's no earthly reason why men shouldn't enjoy it, too. [19 Oct 1995]

Now and Then is much better when Hoffman, Ricci, Birch and Aston Moore draw us into their clique, with all their worldly poses and brittle facades. [20 Oct 1995, p.12]

A coming-of-age film you've seen before. [20 Oct 1995, p.8G]

Now and Then tells twin stories. One is a delight. One is a disastrous distraction. [20 Oct 1995]

Meat and potatoes teen drama. Read full review

The adults do little more than provide marquee allure in brief bookending scenes that add little to rest of the pic. For the most part, Now and Then is a showcase for four fine actresses in their early teens. Read full review

It's the younger women's movie, and they acquit themselves admirably, even if most of the creative energy in the film seems to have gone into the costumes and set design. It's too bad, but in a year when female bonding is all over the screen, and uniformly dreadful to watch, Now and Then merely continues the trend. [20 Oct 1995, p.F14]

Performances are good, the period details accurate, but the script is an artificial hybrid of better-known movies in the genre, borrowing whole scenes and story lines from Stand by Me and even Home Alone. [20 Oct 1995, p.52]

While it's always gratifying to see girls in the kind of piece that has long been male- dominated, Now and Then merely makes ground that better films have explored more memorably seem like a rut. [20 Oct 1995, p.03]

What distinguished Stand by Me was the psychological soundness of the story: We could believe it and care about it. Now and Then is made of artificial bits and pieces. Read full review

The "now" scenes feel much like an excuse for four high-profile actresses to lend their names to this film. At best, their presence is superfluous. Yet even had the film remained entirely in the "then" time frame, it still would have been lacking. There's just not enough originality here, no matter what year it is. Read full review

Now and Then somewhat successfully pushes all the right emotional buttons by depicting themes common to most young girls, but I expected more, not less, from the now in Now and Then. Read full review

Director Lesli Linka Glatter, making her first feature, is another talent to watch. In addition to guiding the young actors to good performances, she sets up scenes knowingly, usually with a punchy comic touch. Read full review

Sweet, but slight. [20 Oct 1995, p.52]

In the end, Now and Then doesn't work well enough as nostalgia for adults or as a story that girls today might identify with. Yet its young ensemble makes it vibrant and enjoyable, even when it fails to surprise. Read full review

For a film which defines its characters entirely in relation to each other, there's a curious lack of chemistry between the leads. Only in the childhood sequences are the undercurrents and tensions of the various relationships explored. Read full review

American movies about childhood often have a spurious feel. They can be grandiosely phony or sentimental--or both, as in Home Alone. Unfortunately, Now and Then, despite massively good intentions, fits right into the program. [20 Oct 1995, p.J]

It's very flimsy, the harrowingly unoriginal screenplay rings false in almost every dialogue exchange, and first-time director Lesli Linka Glatter paints her scenes with the broadest of strokes and a clunky, heavy-handed, TV sitcom sensibility. [20 Oct 1995]

Now and Then, the story of four girls coming of age in the summer of 1970, drags like a bad summer vacation—it floats hazily, ends suddenly and leaves you feeling crabby: How can it be over? Nothing happened. Read full review

One is hard-pressed to isolate any feature of Now and Then that isn't stale from movie overtime and sentimentality. [20 Oct 1995, p.C17]

Growing-up films are bad enough without a shameless all-girl rip off of Stand By Me. [20 Oct 1995]