The Story of Us
Universal Pictures | Release Date: October 15, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
15
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
You can get all of this free on television any week, so why pay for it? Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Turns into a bogus drivel courtesy of a sitcom monster.
20
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Folks, I really feel that seeing this one for you is the movie critic's equivalent of jumping on the grenade to save your lives. Send me medals. Read full review
34
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
This is a second-rate Woody Allen midlife crisis comedy without the laughs. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Merry witticisms collide with empty clichés, leaving these characters with little trace of realism. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The script...and Rob Reiner's direction...bristle with phoniness. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Pungent, funny, and surprisingly forceful. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A sad-sack movie about the misery of a married couple who fight most of the time. Watching it is like taking a long trip in a small car with the Bickersons. Read full review
40
TimeRichard Corliss
Mostly the movie is like the marriage: good casting, golden promise, yet somehow a grating ordeal.
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Slick and glib when it means to be profound yet ruefully witty; its rhythms are pure sitcom, complete with emotional rimshots. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Conspicuously short on the kind of texture that makes us feel we're watching real people living real lives. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
The wet blanket of undigested autobiography lies all over Rob Reiner's excruciating new opus about a marriage winding down into terminal atrophy. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Doesn't live up to the promise of its trailers. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The movie's most inexcusable failing is that, despite all the flashbacks, we never get a sense of what this relationship was like when it worked. Read full review
20
Village VoiceJustine Elias
Maudlin, irritating marital drama. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Wants to be an honest look at the problems that can beset a modern marriage, and be funny at the same time, but it doesn't have the skills or the temperament to pull all that off. Read full review
40
Film.comRobert Horton
A skim-milk version of a yuppie romance. Read full review
50
VarietyEmanuel Levy
The stylistic devices used, which recall early Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky, get increasingly tedious, disrupting not only the sequence of events but also squelching audience sympathy for the protagonists. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunAnn Hornaday
Never makes the Jordans' tribulations feel like anything more than yuppie angst. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Overwrought comedy-drama. Read full review
63
USA TodaySusan Wloszczyna
Another one of those high-gloss treatments of domestic strife that want to have it both ways. Sitcom-slick, melodrama-edgy. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldPhoebe Flowers
Too easily, and predictably, resolves itself.
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Audiences may want their own speedy divorce from this irritating collection of stale jokes, pointless vulgarities, and warmed-over clichés. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Fragmented and contrived, like a badly mapped-out scrapbook. Read full review
50
Film.comPeter Brunette
Tries so hard to push all the pre-ordained buttons, and it's so anxious to be liked, nay, adored, that it left me sullen and uninvolved instead. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Disturbingly lightweight and emotionally risk-free. Read full review
50
TNT RoughCutMorgan Fouch
Willis and Pfeiffer do manage to keep you awake, but you're essentially watching your own marriage up there. And you don't need to pay a sitter to do that.
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
I scratched my head in wonder as to why this pair of one-dimensional characters couldn't find happiness in such a shallow story. Read full review
20
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
Though it sets out to explain why this marriage is worth saving, The Story of Us could prompt even single members of the audience to file for divorce. Read full review
30
NewsweekDavid Ansen
So bland and un-lived in you want to pour Tabasco all over the screen. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianDiana Abu-Jaber
Conveys an almost pulseless Nora Ephron style of homespun wisdom. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A squirmy mix of therapy-session slogans, pop psychobabble, and lots of crying, yelling and pouting on the part of its two stars, who appear in various alarming hairpieces. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverM. V. Moorhead
Snappily directed and edited, and there are moments of funny acting...but the script is all homiletic commonplaces, in quip form, and the wisdom is both stale and dubious. Read full review
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