This Is Where I Leave You
Warner Bros. | Release Date: September 19, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
20
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 18, 2014
Even considering some of its late-innings flaws, this is an engaging movie that doesn't mistake histrionics and bile for solid family reunion drama. Read full review
75
HitfixDrew McWeenySep 11, 2014
The film is often quite funny, and just real enough that we may recognize ourselves in some small way in this family. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeySep 18, 2014
When the grown-up going gets tough, the one thing you know is that the Altmans won't abandon one another. Which makes "This Is Where I Leave You" not earthshaking by any stretch, but somehow reassuring. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 11, 2014
You laugh in spite of yourself in This Is Where I Leave You, a potty-mouthed comedy with enough exasperation, aggravations, long-standing grievances and get-me-outta-here moments of family stress to strike a chord with anyone who’s ever had to endure large clan gatherings that might have lasted a bit too long. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 18, 2014
This Is Where I Leave You is packed with familiar regrets and lost-time makeups but these actors make every recycled moment count for something. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 17, 2014
Subtle it ain’t, but there’s an undercurrent of palpable rage that pokes through the (very funny) banter-banter gloss of the thing, and the actors rip into it with relish. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 18, 2014
As a film it feels overly familiar, with some amusing scenes, but not enough to make for a wholly satisfying experience. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 18, 2014
Thing is, Levy is a hard-sell man. He pushes the material so hard, it's as if he were working on commission. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreSep 16, 2014
A big, broad dysfunctional family comedy, sort of a “Parenthood” pushed into R-rated “Adulthood” territory. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsOct 20, 2014
A dream cast are on good form in a film that makes you want to call your siblings, but very glad you don’t live with them. Read full review
60
VarietyScott FoundasSep 11, 2014
If the movie never quite masters the feel of messy, grown-up life, it at least makes a few promising salvos in that direction... The actors help a lot. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanSep 18, 2014
Fonda gets some of the movie's best moments as the sexually frank, silicone-enhanced mom who got rich off a best-selling memoir that exposed her children's intimate habits. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissSep 20, 2014
So put it this way: If the Altmans were a real family sitting shiva, I’d drop by to commiserate and give a cheek-kiss to a few of the mourners (Bateman, Driver, Fey, maybe Fonda). I enjoyed seeing them, but I’d hate to be sentenced to being with them for the full seven-day stretch. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 19, 2014
Somewhere in this mess, there might be a very good movie. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaSep 19, 2014
The kid is the most mature person on screen. Otherwise, it is gripe, gripe, gripe and snipe, snipe, snipe, all served family style with a bare minimum of relatability. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceySep 18, 2014
As with so many movies where the script constructs experiences that are contrived and off-putting, you hope the actors can capture the emotional truth of some scenes, even if the entire apparatus feels bogus. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 18, 2014
It’s entertaining enough if you turn your brain off. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 18, 2014
What a wasted opportunity. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 18, 2014
It all falls flat. Not completely — there is simply too much talent involved for the film to fail completely. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 18, 2014
Bateman comes off well, humanizing his character with a strain of melancholy that’s one of the movie’s genuinely touching elements. Fey is all right, though she falls back on her patented shtick. Driver makes the most of his hipsterish role, nicely playing off the other siblings’ tension. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsSep 18, 2014
Although the ratio of comedy to drama becomes increasingly weighted toward tearjerking, few of the emotional moments are realistic or effective. Read full review
50
The DissolveMike D'AngeloSep 18, 2014
This Is Where I Leave You struggles in vain to meld broad, farcical comedy with low-key, contemplative drama. It lurches so violently between its twin modes, in fact, that it’s a wonder the actors are able to remain standing upright. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 17, 2014
This Is Where I Leave You demonstrates, a great cast is a terrible thing to waste. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 15, 2014
All of which leaves you wondering: Why cast such talented, interesting, and edgy performers if you're only going to ask them play it safe? Read full review
50
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 11, 2014
Unremarkable but occasionally enjoyable, Levy’s dramedy is pleasant enough, but it grows tired, losing focus by the end. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsStaff (Not credited)Sep 18, 2014
They say any group is only as strong as its weakest link. Well, the weak link in This Is Where I Leave You is the film in which the appealing cast members are stuck. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 18, 2014
Frequently irritating and occasionally insulting. Read full review
40
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 11, 2014
This is Where I Leave You is totally aimble, utterly unmoving filler given a major shot in the arm by its cast, people it’s simply a pleasure to watch, even with the creeping feeling they’re better than this. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 11, 2014
The two who do succeed in forging a convincing bond are Bateman and a spry, switched-on Driver, as brothers with a significant age gap who get each other and tend to join forces against the surrounding tumult. Read full review
39
Film.comJordan HoffmanSep 9, 2014
Tina Fey is in the film, for heaven’s sake, and I love her to pieces, but by now we know to expect something humdrum when she’s on a movie screen. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 18, 2014
This comedy about a death is a funeral for the audience. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEric HendersonSep 18, 2014
And the jury's still very much out over whether Shawn Levy is an inept comedy director masquerading as an opportunistically dramatic one, or vice versa. Read full review
38
ObserverRex ReedSep 17, 2014
I can’t imagine any film starring Jane Fonda to be a total loss, but This Is Where I Leave You, a vulgar, inept and gruesomely contrived load of junk misleadingly labeled a comedy comes perilously close. Read full review
30
TheWrapWitney SeiboldSep 19, 2014
The excellent cast of This Is Where I Leave You cannot be faulted; all talented performers, they collectively make a constant effort to bring some sort of life to the limp script and uninspired direction. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 18, 2014
There is almost nothing here that you haven’t seen a dozen times before, and even the surprises feel flat and familiar. More dispiriting still is that this drab complacency is wrapped around messages of daring, honesty and spontaneity. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 18, 2014
This is one of those overworked and generally airless comedies with a sitcom premise that can't sustain life. Read full review
30
Village VoiceCalum MarshSep 16, 2014
The most charitable thing you can say about This Is Where I Leave You is that it is resolutely innocuous — a nothing of a movie, neutered and sanitary. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 18, 2014
With a bench this deep, This Is Where I Leave You should have been a comedy of contemporary manners as wickedly funny as it is poignant. In the hands of Levy, it’s become just another forgettable example of low-stakes Hollywood hackwork at its most bland, banal and snipingly belligerent. Read full review
20
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 19, 2014
Probably the biggest sin in a movie filled with many is turning Fonda into a nymphomaniacal sight gag who makes Barbarella look like Gloria Steinem. Read full review
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