The Oranges
ATO Pictures | Release Date: October 5, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
15
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
NPRElla TaylorOct 5, 2012
What makes you sit up straight is that The Oranges takes seriously everyone's unhappiness, including the home-wrecker's, without letting anyone off the hook of responsibility for their own becalmed misery. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 4, 2012
The movie has a saving grace in that it breaks formula. Its concerns are not the usual movie concerns, and it takes what might have been a standard plot in some unexpected directions. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickOct 5, 2012
While there are laughs, the farcical elements of The Oranges are not presented with sufficient discipline to live up to the full potential of its cast. But as a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 4, 2012
Maybe The Oranges does represent a middle-age male fantasy, but Laurie lets you see its pitfalls as well as its pleasures. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsDec 5, 2012
The storyline delicately tiptoes along the line of good taste and is embroidered by a first-rate cast. Still, a knockout moment is missing. Read full review
60
TimeMary PolsOct 4, 2012
Light as a feather, the movie is at times a modest pleasure, but inconsequential. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 4, 2012
Ultimately, however, what prevents The Oranges from being the movie it might have been is Farino's inability to settle on a tone. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanOct 6, 2012
What starts off as a neighborhood scandal becomes a liberating thing for everyone involved - an attitude that seems as if it's trying to be oh so European, and might have been had the director, Julian Farino, not been working so hard to convince us of the Deep Inner Goodness of everyone involved. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayOct 3, 2012
Overall, The Oranges appears to have been forcibly wrested into a conventional indie-dramedy package, rather than finding the length, style, structure, and perhaps medium that would best suit it. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyNov 9, 2012
A comedy about a middle-aged dad who has an affair with his neighbour's daughter, The Oranges does not taste freshly squeezed. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 6, 2012
The result is a placid tale of impulses running wild. Farino is a smooth operator, but he puts little on screen that feels like life, as opposed to a middle-of-the-road indie. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 5, 2012
While it claims to be exported from New Jersey, The Oranges is peddling an alien motto: When life hands you lemons, fuhgeddaboudit. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 4, 2012
When the jokes work, it's for a simple reason: The four actors playing the couples are seasoned veterans of film comedy (although each is more than capable of handling dramatic roles, as well). Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 2, 2012
The film is worth seeing for the excellent ensemble work by a cast that, although diligent and appealing, remain somewhat less than thrilling. They do their best to plumb the depths of domestic dysfunction, but in the end, The Oranges does not quite deliver the goods. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 11, 2012
Janney steals the movie in the scene in which she discovers the awful truth. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen HoldenOct 4, 2012
How could a movie starring Hugh Laurie, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney and Catherine Keener go so wrong? That is the mystery behind The Oranges, a dysfunctional-family comedy - excuse the cliché - that backs away in terror from its potentially explosive subject. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanOct 4, 2012
Even the actors seem disconnected, with only Leighton Meester - who has the most to prove - working to create a distinguishable character. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 3, 2012
The Oranges has little original shading. Read full review
40
Village VoiceChris PackhamOct 2, 2012
The Oranges, an extremely dry comedy directed by Julian Farino, is kind of like a takedown of the suburbs written by the people who designed the menu at Olive Garden: It's inoffensive, forgettable, and you don't actually have to chew anything. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldConnie OgleOct 5, 2012
What we are not spared is the sort of trite movie that lacks the backbone of any good dysfunctional-family comedy: a thread of the universal amid the absurdity. Read full review
25
The PlaylistGabe ToroOct 6, 2012
Unfortunately, there are few screens small enough to properly convey how inessential another deadpan suburbs satire is in 2012. Read full review
20
Time OutEric HynesOct 2, 2012
Neither Janney nor Keener can rise above the rote hatefulness of their madwoman caricatures, whereas Laurie and Meester fare better at playing liberated dreamers who go against the dreaded grain. But shooting fish in a barrel tends to unintentionally conjure sympathy for the fish - or, in this case, for perfectly unhappy suburbanites. Read full review
0
Slant MagazineChris CabinOct 3, 2012
As much as the dialogue in the film voices an attitude of self-liberation and champions the positives of severing accepted social constraints, it seems to be constantly taking one step forward and two steps back. Read full review
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