Barrymore Reviews
Slant Magazine
Director Erik Canuel fails to deliver us from the inevitable hermeticism of the material.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Top CriticIt was brilliant as a one-man stage show; it was never a good candidate for film.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
While Plummer acts his heart out, the script becomes one punchline after another.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
StaciWilson.com
In spite of creating a CGI world around Plummer, much is lost in this translation, making an impressive performance from him seem inert.
The material itself has a formulaic solo-bioplay rhythm neither performer nor director can fully elude.
This isn't a film, it's a recording of canned ham-tasty, certainly, but creaky nonetheless.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Film Journal International
Christopher Plummer works hard to give us his idea of John Barrymore in this record of a theatrical tour-de-force, which is more dramatically florid than biographically enlightening.
Effortless charm has always been a characteristic of Plummer's performance, and here he wields it to considerable effect.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Flicks.co.nz
As an acting masterclass, it's educational and entertaining.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Urban Cinefile
In the hands of an actor of such calibre as Plummer, it is riveting stuff. And often hilarious, risqué, even coarse on occasion
3AW
Erik Canuel, who directed and adapted the work, employs a host of cinematic techniques to enhance Plummer's spell-binding turn as a crotchety has-been who, in 1942, attempts to revive his career by playing Richard III.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Mr. Plummer stumbles beautifully, poignantly and often, leering and searching through a haze of memory or, with concern edged with panic, calling for "a line, a line" much as Richard III calls for a horse.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Plummer's Barrymore shows flashes of glory as he delivers bits and pieces of various Shakespearean roles.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Plummer is marvelous, flitting between reminiscence and Shakespearean recitation as a gifted artist aware of his own wretchedness.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Despite some stylistic missteps, showcase for Plummer's Tony-winning performance will captivate theater fans.
God, I love Plummer's performance -- the twiddling fingers, the tipsy sway of the head, the reverberating roar, as well as the pathos of a man who can't stop acting long enough to hear the cry of his own soul.
A wistful look at faded dreams and opportunities lost due to both the vagaries of the business and self-sabotage.
Plummer is the one-man show at the center of this one-man vehicle. He will leave you stunned and cheering.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
You wish you could be seeing this performance live, as it's meant to be seen - but lacking that, "Barrymore" on the big screen provides its own thrills.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Mr. Plummer stumbles beautifully, poignantly and often, leering and searching through a haze of memory or, with concern edged with panic, calling for 'a line, a line' much as Richard III calls for a horse.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
