Shrink Reviews
Top Critic
Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, and when those sparks emanate from a doobie clutched by Kevin Spacey, a smug critique of the American dream is sure to follow.
I'm not his manager, but I wonder if Kevin Spacey would profit from laying off the sardonic, disaffected, emotionally numb characters for a while. They're criminally easy for him at this point in his career.
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| Original Score: 2/4
The characters are so flatly conceived and their dilemmas so familiar that you wonder if the filmmakers even aspired to be original. Luckily, Kevin Spacey plays Carter with scene-saving grace.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
There really was a much better comedy here than melodrama.
Some of the humor is delicious. And there are a few fine moments of truth and pathos, most of them addressing a subset of grief often ignored on film.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
No one knows why bad things happen to good people. But we do know why bad things happen to good film ideas. They get ruined by poor scripts and indifferent direction.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Directed by Jonas Pate and written with a nice ear for self-delusion by Thomas Moffet, Shrink mixes cliches with some pleasant surprises.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
In seeking to depict the shallowness of Hollywood life, it's hard not to appear shallow yourself.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Shrink is no worse than the average Hollywood comedy. But it shows, more obviously than most, the bankruptcy of standard-issue American pop narrative, circa 2009.
The script by Thomas Moffett slickly satirizes the movie industry's fascination with vampires and special effects without being especially compelling or original.
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| Original Score: 2/4
This is a movie for people who thought Crash was wise and profound, most of whom probably live in L.A. and know everything they know about life from watching movies.
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| Original Score: 1/4
[Spacey's] good, but the film doesn't find an emotional center, and we're left with actors acting out.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
I felt it felt forced from the first moment into the last moment.
A strong script from writer Thomas Moffett and stellar work from Spacey are what really make this movie work.
Director Jonas Pate and screenwriter Thomas Moffett have turned this strongly cast, potentially smart tale of personal intersection among a mostly rarefied group of Los Angelenos into an irritating and unconvincing slog.
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| Original Score: 1.5/5
Jonas Pate's derivative L.A. indie brings few fresh revelations, but it does offer this insight: There is no more juice left in the strangers-connected-by-coincidence story line.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Shrink starts promisingly, but Jonas Pate directs his fine cast straight into a swamp of schmaltz as every loose thread of plot gets patly resolved.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Like smog settling over Los Angeles, a creeping sense of anomie haunts the Hollywood power players and parasites sidling nervously through Shrink.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Full of fake moments and 'Deep Thoughts' sentiment. It's the kind of film in which people stare regretfully into mirrors a lot.
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| Original Score: 1/4
Spacey gives his best performance since Swimming With Sharks, and Palmer, the young star of Akeelah and the Bee, has matured into an actress of depth and nuance.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Never mind the crazy cast; this weary retread of trendy multicharacter melodramas is what's really unhinged.
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| Original Score: 2/5
It wants to be Good Will Hunting set in the land of Entourage, but its bummed-out touchy-feeliness is every bit as concocted as its overly jaded showbiz corruption.
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| Original Score: C-
Not since The Informers, based catatonically on the idiotic Bret Easton Ellis book, has the screen unleashed a Hollywood abortion as dismal and dead-on-arrival as Shrink.
Hollywood movies don't get much more self-regarding than this.
The characters in Thomas Moffett's script are intriguing enough, and director Jonas Pate gets sufficiently lively work from his eclectic cast, that you end up caring about them anyway.
