- Network: PBS
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 17, 2024
Critic Reviews
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It's wonderfully written stuff from the show's creator, Victor Levin ("Mad About You," "Mad Men"), electric and quasi-screwball and makes you want to stick around yourself—even if you think the comparatively stable Jack should be heading for Hampstead Heath. Navigating the obstacles, they fall in love, profoundly and convincingly.
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I have watched all of it and, while it is not as moving as One Day, it takes you on an intense journey with an unforgettable denouement. Both leads are excellent, but she [Andrea Riseborough] gives it the heft. It's not perfect but it is raw and honest, and if you make it to the end you will be rewarded, though not exactly cheered.
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Alice & Jack sometimes feels like one of the most interesting love stories we’ve seen in ages, and at others it’s infuriatingly annoying. But Gleeson and Riseborough have undeniable chemistry, which is enough for us to want to see this decade-and-a-half romance play out.
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Be warned, you may not like Alice, or indeed Jack. There are times when I think: what insufferable, self-indulgent drama queens! .... At the same time, Alice & Jack feels at once daring, cerebral (like a strange, long play chopped into six bits), prickly and amusing (“I’m going to say this to you as nice as I can – go away, please”).
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The show may present itself as though it's an anti-romantic story, but in actual fact it's hyper-romantic, to the extent that it borders on the absurd. We're never given a clear reason why these two love each other, what it is about their personalities they each find so entrancing.
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Alice and Jack was scattered in its storytelling and sparse in its atmosphere; in other words, it was too pretentious for its own good.
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Asks the excellent Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson to sell a variety of plot points that strain credibility to preposterous lengths. Despite a few genuinely touching moments, it’s far too daft to enchant.
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It’s difficult to picture any two performers making much of such shallow material. From the moment they meet, Alice and Jack are utterly consumed by their hot-and-cold dynamic, and Alice & Jack, is too.
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It manages to be preposterous and deathly at the same time. The dialogue is pretentious. The last five minutes are completely stupid. The only bright spots are the two supporting performances, from Aimee Lou Wood as Maya, Alice’s capable assistant, and Sunil Patel as Paul, Jack’s colleague.
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Alice & Jack works harder and harder to convince us of everything, but, despite the talented leads giving it their all, there isn’t enough to convince us of anything.
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The star-crossed lovers of Alice & Jack, however, stay leaden, never becoming gold.
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Clunkiness extends to every person stuck in the toxic orbit of their will-they-won’t-they. If the series accomplishes anything, it captures the sensation of romantic tunnel vision convincingly enough, though that could be by accident; the supporting cast surrounding the leads is stock generated from Romance Mad Libs.