Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter)

Miramax Films | Release Date: December 25, 1994

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

48	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Michael Wilmington

It's a spree of a movie, one of the most impishly entertaining of Altman's career. Smart, sparkling, almost sinfully amusing. Read full review

Steve Persall

Ready to Wear is a comedy - one of Altman's funniest - but it's the humor of humiliation, of the characters and the industry. [23 Dec 1994, p.16]

Duane Byrge

Undeniably, it's a strange and savage blend, and Altman has undressed the fashion world as a heap of dirty laundry. He has fashioned a super satirical sendup. [9 Dec 1994]

Harper Barnes

Ready to Wear is loads of fun, witty and audacious, but you have to be on your toes to follow a serpentine script (by Altman and Barbara Shulgasser) that cleverly interweaves 10 or 12 plot lines. [24 Dec 1994, p.3F]

Roger Ebert

The result is a little like a comedy crossed with a home movie. It is also, like many home movies, somewhat rambling, and overly dependent on knowing the names of all the players. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Ready to Wear doesn't have enough substance to justify its length, nor does it possess enough raw humor to leaven the flat spots. The jokes are inconsistently funny, with some being worth giggles, some eliciting hearty chuckles, and some prompting little more than shrugs. Read full review

Mike Clark

Pro orchestrator that he is, Altman at least gives the illusion of a three-ring circus, but he's working third-rate material without a net. [23 Dec 1994, p.10D]

Jay Carr

Ready to Wear has entertaining bits, but for a film about people converging on Paris to increase the hysteria and anxiety levels, Ready to Wear has surprisingly little urgency. [23 Dec 1994, p.48]

David Ansen

Ready to Wear is all appetizers: the main course never arrives. Still, the critical savagery puzzles me. Altman's movie may be indefensible, but it's not unenjoyable. The fun of it is entirely superficial, like skimming a gossip column. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

While the surfaces, backgrounds and sense of constant motion are authentic to their tinselly cores, what goes on among the fictional participants resembles gag-reliant improv routines that haven’t been entirely worked out. Read full review

Edward Guthmann

The potential for a funny film is here -- one that captures people with their ''clothes'' off, and uses fashion as a metaphor for emotional defenses. Sadly, Altman seems to have taken out all the jokes, and given his actors nothing but sketches to work from. [23 Dec 1994, p.D1]

David Baron

Like the often glittering fashions it mostly celebrates, Altman's movie is a melange of hits and misses. The root of the problem is a wildly uneven script (by Altman and Barbara Shulgasser) that contains both near-brilliant bons mots and shopworn banter. [23 Dec 1994, p.L26]

Rene Rodriguez

Altman seems lost here. We expect Ready to Wear to go behind the glamour of the fashion industry, uncover the pimples and scars on those flawless faces and bodies, wrinkle a few overpriced cat suits. But the movie is as superficial as its subject. [24 Dec 1994, p.G1]