Opening

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—— A Green Story May 24
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Coming Soon

—— After Earth May 31
—— Now You See Me May 31
100% The Kings of Summer May 31
89% The East May 31

Meet Bill (2007)

tomatometer

0

Average Rating: 2.7/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 7

No consensus yet.

audience

45

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 7,848

My Rating

Movie Info

A henpecked husband locked in a dead-end job attempts to reclaim his life with a little help from a self-assured teen and a pretty lingerie sales girl in this bittersweet romantic comedy starring Aaron Eckhart, Elizabeth Banks, and Jessica Alba. Bill (Eckhart) is a walking doormat; his in-laws look down their noses at him, his wife, Jess (Banks), neglects him, and his love for chocolate is beginning to affect his waistline. When Bill discovers that Jess has recently struck up a "friendship" with

R,

Comedy

Melissa Wallack

Jul 15, 2008

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All Critics (21) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (4) | Rotten (16) | DVD (5)

The story of a man (Aaron Eckhart) grappling with middle-age ennui at work and at home feels done to death, as does the distracting addition of a spunky rich-kid high schooler.

June 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This movie never should have seen the light of day.

May 12, 2008
Ebert & Roeper
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Male midlife crisis presents as pathological self-loathing in Meet Bill, an imperative to which the only sane response is: No thanks.

May 9, 2008
New York Times
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Even a hilarious turn by Kristen Wiig as the owner of a doughnut company can't save this clichéd, meandering story from playing like American Beauty lite.

May 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
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Meet Bill misfires on multiple levels, but its foremost mistake is focusing on a sad-sack underachiever. Bill doesn't believe in himself, so why should we?

April 3, 2008 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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When all is said and done, Bill is let down by Bill.

September 17, 2007
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Discovering your real self is the theme of Meet Bill, in which Bill has to work hard to finally meet himself

January 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile
Urban Cinefile

Not even a solid performance can keep the script's problems at bay.

July 28, 2008 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com
DVDTalk.com

It doesn't take long for Bill to suddenly veer off course into total impenetrability, where the characters become a blur, the hacky visual poetry is rolled out, and the plot drops dead.

July 21, 2008 Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com
BrianOrndorf.com

Not awful or offensive, but pretty weak broth nonetheless.

June 20, 2008

It tries hard to mimic the arch tone of the best suburban tragicomedies (American Beauty, et al.), but a surfeit of stock characters, double-wide plot holes and heavy-handed symbolism ruins the effect.

June 12, 2008 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly
L.A. Weekly

As the movie goes on, you actually end up rooting for this schmuck to take charge of his life, and in a way, the movie is sort of inspiring.

June 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Sin Magazine | Comment (1)
Sin Magazine

For those whose idea of hilarity is an adult and a kid throwing fireworks at each other, then getting stoned and playing piggyback in the mall, this movie should be a refreshing tonic.

May 23, 2008 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Takes scattershot aim at all manner of appropriate targets-the vapid nature of local television news, the perceived stigma of standing out from the pack in America, the dilemma of dreams deferred and abandoned-but rarely hits the comic bull's-eye.

May 9, 2008 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine
Boxoffice Magazine

Clunky and smug, Meet Bill isn't convincing for one moment.

April 4, 2008 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Audience Reviews for Meet Bill

Bill: They hate that I'm working at their bank. I hate that I'm working at their bank. 

Meet Bill is a perfect example that an exemplary cast can't hold up a movie that is without good material. The cast is great: Aaron Eckart, Elizabeth Banks, Timothy Olyphant, Holmes Osborne, Kristen Wiig, Jessica Alba, and Logan Lerman. The story, however, is extremely dull. 

The story is about Bill. A man who's addicted to sugar, works at a bank with his in-laws, and has a wife that cheats on him with the local news guy. Bill then takes up mentoring a student and starts to try to find himself. His search is pretty boring. The movie wants to be insightful and funny, but it just comes off as a dull and unfunny comedy with no redeeming qualities; that will be forgotten twenty minutes after watching it.

I honestly thought I would like this. I'm an Aaron Eckart fan. I've loved several of his movies. From Thank You For Smoking to The Dark Knight. From Conversations with Other Women(Extremely Underrated) to Rabbit Hole. He normally plays characters that are interesting. Here he plays a character that is extremely, ummm.... uninteresting and extremely boring. 

Meet Bill is not funny enough to be a good comedy and not dramatic enough to be a good drama. It's just a piece of garbage. Once you throw it away, you forget about it.
July 22, 2011
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

Pleasant enough age crisis comedy that veers off course but Aaron Eckhart is good in the lead and keeps it on track as much as possible.
December 6, 2009
jjnxn
jay nixon

Super Reviewer

    1. Bill: They hate that I'm working at their bank. I hate that I'm working at their bank.
    – Submitted by Evan T (11 months ago)

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