Old Joy
Kino International | Release Date: September 20, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
1
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
A triumph of modesty and of seriousness that also happens to be one of the finest American films of the year. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
It's in all the moments where little happens that Reichardt is most amazing, investing even a gas-station pit stop with perfect emotional pitch. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Old Joy is only 76 minutes long, but it has the contemplative power of Buddhist meditation. Reichardt gives us long, stoned takes of rural roads; shots of birds, insects and slugs in the spectacular Oregon rain forest; interludes with Mark's dog, Lucy. Some viewers may well be bored, or monumentally irritated, by this. I found it masterly, riveting. Read full review
100
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
The movie's scale is minuscule, but the physical and emotional landscapes it travels are as broad, deep and mysterious as the human psyche itself. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
For all the ephemeral pleasure of the company of old friends, there is a chasm between them and the dynamics shift from moment to moment. The beauty of the film is how director Kelly Reichardt brilliantly captures those moments with lucid simplicity. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Old Joy doesn't try for too much, but its subtle victories leave plenty to savor. Read full review
91
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A spare, trembling lyric poem of a movie that uses stillness and facial blips the way melodramas use showdowns and action films big bangs. Read full review
90
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
A good Listless Film carries a double melancholy for all: it makes us sad for its characters and sad for the world that has thus affected them. Old Joy is such a film. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Miniaturist in its level of detail and evocatively abstract, Old Joy captures the weary mood of a generation that's crested its peak along with an era, quietly making a case for how well suited film can be to capturing the finer points of human interaction while preserving their mystery. Read full review
90
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It feels so real it hurts, and it's the perfect antidote to all those movies where all sorts of stuff blows up. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This quiet, elegiac road movie hinges on a few beautifully underplayed scenes between Daniel London and Will Oldham. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not credited)
Without relying on dialogue, and once again making good but sparing use of Yo La Tengo's toasty guitar soundtrack, Reichardt proves herself a filmmaker with a masterful sense of the expressive purity of the passing moment. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Kurt and Mark's trip to those hot springs is a figurative return to Eden. Anyone who's had a disillusioning reunion with a moony old friend knows what Mark discovers: They're too old to stay that innocent. None of this hit me until after the movie ended. But it hit me hard: You can't go home again. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jason Anderson
A precise, subtle and emotionally affecting portrait of the fraying friendship between two men, director Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy is an increasingly rare sort of American independent film: It aspires to be something other than a Hollywood movie with less money. Read full review
80
Film ThreatDon R. Lewis
A superb exercise in economical filmmaking. Not only from a financial standpoint, as the film was shot in HD and on-location in gorgeous Portland, Oregon…but the story here is so subtle and well drawn, if you blink you might miss it. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Against a radiant backdrop of decay and rebirth, nothing needs to be said; everything in this lovely film is crystalline. Read full review
80
VarietyScott Foundas
A beautifully nuanced study in friendship and the irretrievability of the past. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
If Old Joy is more laid-back and contemplative than "Mutual Appreciation," it's because the characters are more weathered. Open-ended as it may appear, it has a crushing finality. For all the wool-gathering and guitar-noodling, this road movie is at least as tender as it is ironic. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Making exceptional use of stillness and silence, this is a rather sad study of the passing of traditional concepts of American masculinity along with the landscape that forged them. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Old Joy is an accurately observed slice of that moment between postadolescence and parenthood, when friends cling or scatter, and circumstances force buried feelings to the fore. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
The result is a film that fails to completely involve you, even as you admire its artistry. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The movie has a large theme, even if it's unspoken. Old Joy is about a particular friendship, but it's also about how American society changed in the '90s and the new century. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Features some of the year's most beautiful scenery and two of its most wooden characters. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle Smith
You must lead a dull life if it would be enlivened by 76 minutes' worth of Old Joy. Read full review
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