Third Person
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: June 20, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
38
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 26, 2014
Third Person is Paul Haggis' best movie, and the one he has been building toward for years. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianJeff BakerJul 11, 2014
I came away impressed at how Haggis made something original and real. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeJun 19, 2014
Though virtually every twist on this emotional roller coaster feels preordained by its architect, the director leaves certain mysteries for the audience to interpret, making for a more open-ended and mature work all around. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 2, 2014
Third Person staggers well over the two-hour mark only to self-destruct in a burst of overwrought cleverness. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerJun 26, 2014
Wonderful as it is to watch great actors delve deeply into their roles, it’s a shame that the material they are delivering is just so damn confusing. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 17, 2014
Haggis lets us get way ahead of the characters and the figure out what the title of this writerly tale — Third Person — has to do with the sometimes illogical connections between stories. That’s not a problem. Dragging, dragging dragging the tales out after he reaches a logical climax and something close to a resolution with each is not. Read full review
60
Total FilmPhilip KempJan 9, 2015
Everything gets just too damn convoluted for its own good, and it’s hard to care what becomes of Haggis’ characters as they’re shifted around. Any one of the strands expanded alone might have worked better. Read full review
60
The DissolveTasha RobinsonJun 19, 2014
Third Person’s considerable strengths generally come from the actors. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJul 10, 2014
Third Person doesn’t lack for ambition, and it’s nice to see Neeson in the kind of role that he excelled at before he morphed into an action star. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJun 20, 2014
They make you wish Haggis would put away the Great Themes, the belabored dialogue, the forced narrative dynamics, and just figure out a way to scale down his scope and tell smaller stories. Maybe it’s not all as connected as he thinks. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaJun 20, 2014
This layered melodrama strains for emotional impact with only occasional success while eventually blurring into an overlong and contrived parlor trick. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 19, 2014
I don't like this movie. I don't like how it walks, talks, struts and sells itself. I find it contrived, tortured, humorless, infuriating and interminable. And yet if you care anything about film and the creative drive that still exists in the people who make them, then Third Person needs to be seen. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJun 19, 2014
Clumsy and contrived, the film never manages to connect the dots in a trio of stories set in three different cities, and I had to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJun 16, 2014
The revelation is Wilde. A slender beauty with high cheekbones, she makes Anna a full-fledged neurotic, candid and demanding and changeable, shifting abruptly from snuggling happiness to angry defiance. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungApr 18, 2014
The drama and intensity that are [Haggis's] signatures are mostly missing from these vividly dramatized but uninvolving romantic crises, none of which are particularly believable. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 19, 2014
The three main narratives cut back and forth between New York, Paris, and Rome, which is the best thing the movie has going for it: picturesque locations. Unfortunately, by the time we're done taking in the sights and Haggis finally coughs up his third-act puzzle-box twist, it comes off as a big metaphysical So What. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerNov 10, 2014
If "Crash" set your teeth on edge, book in at the dentist's before seeing this one. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 4, 2014
Everything is overwrought, every circumstance a potential tragedy. Humor is largely absent. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJun 19, 2014
In blurring the lines between truth and fiction as well as right and wrong, Third Person maddens far more than it intrigues. Indeed, more curious than anything about the movie itself is how such an artistic stumble happened. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 19, 2014
Cold and clever to a fault, like the main character played by Liam Neeson, the movie is based on a fundamental miscalculation—that our desire to penetrate its mysteries will trump our need for people to care about. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 17, 2014
It’s crushing, then, that the movie’s big reveal is the kind of narrative do-over that could only spring from the mind of an almighty writer in love with playing God — or with himself. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJul 2, 2014
Derivative and self-important, Third Person is a concept and not much more, precisely the sort of film that makes you wonder why anybody would bother to see it at all. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 26, 2014
How much of what we see in Third Person is the novelist's invention is part of the guessing game that goes on and on. And. On. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 26, 2014
As is true with so much of Haggis’s work, Third Person suffers from an airless, too-neat lack of connection with organic life. Read full review
30
TheWrapDiane GarrettJun 20, 2014
Third Person is an intricately constructed but unaffecting bore. Kinder people might call it an “interesting failure,” but to earn that label it would need to be interesting. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJun 19, 2014
The storytelling is infuriatingly coy, as if Mr. Haggis were trying to fool you (and himself) into thinking that he has something to say. Third Person finds Mr. Haggis, like Mr. Neeson’s screen alter ego, running on empty. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJun 17, 2014
When the head-scratching impossibilities are more irritating than intriguing, does the last-second explanation outweigh the two hours we've spent rolling our eyes? Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jun 18, 2014
As schematic as Third Person is on a whole, it’s downright risible on a moment-to-moment basis. Read full review
20
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 11, 2014
It's also deeply flawed, an emotionally exhausting film with a payoff that is limited at best, and a bit self-indulgent to boot. So while Haggis has proven himself a first-rate filmmaker and storyteller, by his standards, Third Person is little more than a second-rate effort. Read full review
20
The GuardianCatherine ShoardApr 18, 2014
Third Person is a work of staggering trash; an ensemble drama with the aesthetic of an in-flight magazine, but less classy writing. Read full review
12
New York PostKyle SmithJun 18, 2014
Paul Haggis’ Third Person has nothing to say and spends 2 ¹/₂ hours not saying it. Its combination of pretentiousness, vanity and vapidity suggests Alain Resnais directing a triple episode of “Guiding Light.” Read full review
0
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneJun 18, 2014
If the glue holding Crash's arcs together was Paul Haggis's belief in the power of racism, this time it's love. Read full review
0
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthApr 18, 2014
Third Person is an audacious failure, one that even its starry cast can't save. With a trite script, and an even more glib thematic undercurrent, Third Person is nothing short of an outright embarrassment. Read full review
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