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Reviews Counted:9
Fresh:4
Rotten:5
Average Rating:5.4/10
Theatrical Release:May 9, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: A Previous Engagement is a sophisticated comedy written and directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin (Honeymoon), starring Juliet Stevenson (Bend it Like Beckham, Truly Madly Deeply), Tcheky Karyo (The Good... [More]
Starring: Juliet Stevenson, Tcheky Karyo, Daniel Stern, Valerie Mahaffey
Director: Joan Carr-Wiggin
Despite the occasional detour into mawkishness, "A Previous Engagement" nicely balances unutterable truths about marriage and love with the comedy that is human interaction and the unending drama that is man and women, repulsion and attraction.
Top CriticThis is a romantic comedy where the romance is too fraught with implications for a comedy, and the treatment of character is too flippant for a romance.
Top CriticWhile this slow-starting update of Private Lives has plenty of laughs, the incredibly expressive Stevenson turns Julia's romantic dilemma into something genuinely moving. She makes A Previous Engagement something special.
Top CriticDirector Joan Carr-Wiggin intends to strike a blow for frustrated wives and mothers everywhere, but her unimaginative mixture of obvious farce and feeble midlife crisis harangues gives everything the whiff of interminable theater.
Top CriticThough frantic from the get-go, A Previous Engagement rarely finds its feet. Devoid of the fine balance of grace and chaos necessary to any screen farce, the proceedings are slapdash, repetitious and badly overextended.
Top CriticMore tired than the fantasy it promotes, A Previous Engagement aims at middle-aged women with the subtlety of a pitch for bladder-control medication.
Top CriticStevenson is so incandescent -- so funny, so vulnerable, so awkwardly sexy...that she lifts writer-director Joan Carr-Wiggin's ordinary middle-aged rom-com above all its abundant clichés.
Top CriticA cookie-cutter romantic comedy.
Top CriticA great actress even in a not-so-great comedy is fully worth the price of admission in these far from halcyon days, both movie-wise and world-wise.
Top Critic
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