Obvious Child
A24 | Release Date: June 6, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJun 12, 2014
It's a well-written rom-com with rascally charm, a modest story of an awkward Brooklyn girl making a go of life. It's irreverent and rough around the edges with an imperfect protagonist, blue language, scatological humor and rambling confessional stand-up monologues, sometimes about bodily fluids. The laughs are frequent and ribald. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 18, 2014
It’s an indie film about abortion that comes snuggled in the broad strokes of a quirky relationship comedy. A grump might wonder when indie films got so soft, but I’m more intrigued by the inverse: Why aren’t more studio films this clever and winning and conversant in the same language as their audience? Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 12, 2014
It’s a warm, sympathetic, very sloppy, and often very funny little movie about a young woman who, among several other things, is not remotely ready to be a parent and knows it. Read full review
80
CineVueEd FranklSep 22, 2014
This is a film of ideas, but it's a comedy first, and its boldness is that it doesn't aim to address a pro-choice or pro-life stance - it's about Donna just getting on with it all the same. Read full review
80
EmpireOlly RichardsAug 25, 2014
Sharp, funny and feeling, this isn't just Juno-meets-Girls but a smart film that tackles real-life issues with rare frankness. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJun 4, 2014
Despite a few too-cute moments (and many fantastically graphic vagina jokes), the movie is both smarter and more sympathetic than that glib shorthand. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnJun 3, 2014
The real triumph of Obvious Child involves its ability to make familiar ingredients work just fine on their own terms. In doing so, it makes up for a lot of lost time in the pantheon of female-centric comedies, and studios would be wise to take note. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJun 12, 2014
As Obvious Child stumbles its way to the final punch line, it echoes Donna's onstage musings — funny but rough around the edges. A work in progress that somehow hooks you anyway. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 27, 2014
Not all of the stand-up scenes in Obvious Child are quite as funny. At least one is meant to be bad. Another is meant to be poignant but just ends up coming off as a touch weird and emotionally false. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 5, 2014
Laughter may be the best medicine, but in Obvious Child, it’s also a helluva cure for dealing with a serious topic. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 9, 2014
The beauty of Obvious Child is that there’s nothing obvious about it. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithJun 4, 2014
No, this film by director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre just isn’t funny, and the mismatched leads aren’t even interesting together. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJun 19, 2014
Politics aside, Obvious Child hinges on Slate's performance, which is endearing and real. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJun 6, 2014
Unlike in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up," with a similar circumstance and where abortion is not even mentioned by name (except for the cowardly "schma-shmortion"), Obvious Child is honest. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 5, 2014
Obvious Child is a romcom with a sting in its tail. And Slate is a dynamo, nailing every laugh while showing a true actor's gift for nuance. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 9, 2014
Often scabrously funny in a post-Lena Dunham, post-Woody Allen New York comedy vein, and finds a star performance in the thoroughly unlikely personage of Jenny Slate. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 12, 2014
The pregnancy monologue isn't funny at all, despite cuts to audience members laughing it up. It's a small false note in a movie that's otherwise as honest as they come. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneMar 20, 2014
Whatever your foreknowledge of low-budget Brooklyn dramedies, it's impossible that Gillian Robespierre's film won't lob you at least a few curveballs. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensJun 5, 2014
There's something old-Hollywood about Slate's dizzy-dame charm, and at the same time, something very modern about her unapologetic ownership of her own sexuality. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 26, 2014
Sorry, partisans, but there’s nothing obvious about Obvious Child. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 26, 2014
Robespierre does a nice job of balancing the seriousness of this situation with the no-boundaries irreverence of Donna's comedy background. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jun 4, 2014
In turning a 23-minute story into an 83-minute one, Robespierre sometimes struggles to occupy her running time. Read full review
80
The DissolveGenevieve KoskiJun 3, 2014
Despite its attention-grabbing logline and gleeful embrace of raunchy, frequently scatological humor, Obvious Child is at heart a well-realized, straight-ahead rom-com, one with the potential to reinvigorate a genre that’s been flagging for decades. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorJun 20, 2014
In truth, despite its honesty, this is a flawed little film, its low comedy never funny enough to justify its crudeness. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksApr 18, 2014
A glorious jumping bean comedy that moves from the profane to the poignant in the blink of an eye. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJun 5, 2014
Raunchy humor laced with gradually revealed vulnerability makes for a winning combination in Obvious Child, a wildly funny and appealing female-centric comedy that launches very promising talent on both sides of the camera. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 5, 2014
It’s both funny and serious without trying too hard to be either, and by trying above all to be honest. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJames RocchiApr 18, 2014
Obvious Child is well-made and wickedly bold, but I still found myself wishing for a little more subtle maturity on the part of its characters and creators. Read full review
92
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJun 5, 2014
The only agenda of this scruffy and urbane comedy, about a young comic contemplating abortion, is to be true and funny. Read full review
80
Time OutTomris LafflyJun 3, 2014
Leavened by an attractive soundtrack that includes the Carter Family’s well-placed “Single Girl, Married Girl” (and the Paul Simon song that gives the film its title), Obvious Child has a loud agenda that will be off-putting to some. Still, it’s a welcome counterpoint to the likes of "Knocked Up" and even "Juno," where the abortion route is an apparent no-go. Read full review
50
USA TodayScott BowlesJun 5, 2014
The problem is the movie's comedians, who are, to the last, unfunny. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 18, 2014
The humor springs either from real-world recognition, as Robespierre and her co-writers go where others fear to tread, or in response to the cast’s lively, eccentrically lived-in characters. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJun 3, 2014
Obvious Child is perfect for those who want more honesty in fiction. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 5, 2014
Yet the heart of the film lies in what it manages to say, without boldface or italics, about how hard it is for Donna, like so many of her anxious cohort, to make genuine connections, to break free of narcissistic constraints and become a stand-up grown-up. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 12, 2014
There are as many awkward, discomfiting sequences in Obvious Child as there are interludes of genuine fun and romance. The result is a movie that feels risky and forgiving and, despite its traditional rom-com contours, refreshingly new. Read full review
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