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MOVIES / IN THEATERS / DIMINISHED CAPACITY
Diminished Capacity

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Diminished Capacity (2008)

28%
22%
N/A
N/A
N/A
28 %
Reviews Counted: 25 Fresh: 7  Rotten:18 Average Rating: 5.2/10
 
Consensus: This low-key comedy about memory loss offers mild pleasures but is too bland to fully resonate.
 

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins

Theatrical Release: Jul 4, 2008 Limited

Synopsis: After a concussion leaves him unfocused, short on short-term memory, and demoted from the political pages to the comics, Cooper (Matthew Broderick), a Chicago newspaper editor, travels home to Missouri to visit his aging Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda). On the verge of losing his home and... After a concussion leaves him unfocused, short on short-term memory, and demoted from the political pages to the comics, Cooper (Matthew Broderick), a Chicago newspaper editor, travels home to Missouri to visit his aging Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda). On the verge of losing his home and exhibiting signs of senility, Rollie spends his time stubbornly refusing to pay bills, compulsively drying socks, and sitting by the lake editing "fish poetry" (think typewriter keys tied to baited fishing lines). But when he shows Cooper a near-mint-condition Frank "Wildfire" Schulte baseball card, the two muddled men—along with Cooper's high school sweetheart, Charlotte ( Virginia Madsen)--drive back to Chicago hoping to sell the antique card at a memorabilia convention. Director Terry Kinney and screenwriter Sherwood Kiraly (who also wrote the novel) have concocted a delightful, bittersweet comedy about people coming together and memory falling apart. Full of wit and observant character humor, Diminished Capacity is cleverly set in the world of baseball cards and commercialized nostalgia that allows us to explore the value of our memories (which may not be what's quoted in the price list) and who we are without them. It's with a hint of melancholy that we accept that our memories are fleeting, or as Rollie's fish point out in one of their more-accessible poems, "Time is the guest of the north." They may be on to something. -- © Sundance Film Festival [More]

Genre: Comedies

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen, Alan Alda, Louis C.K., Jimmy Bennett

Director: Terry Kinney
Screenwriter: Sherwood Kiraly
Producer: Celine Rattray, Galt Niederhoffer, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Tim Evans
Composer: Robert Burger

Reviews

 
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Ratings Image
B+

A gentle, agreeable dramedy, Capacity reveals that Kinney has a unique hold on tone and shares a palpable charm with his actors.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/17/08
Brian Orndorf
BrianOrndorf.com
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3/4

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
07/16/08
Kyle Smith
New York Post
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2/5

Suffering from a diminished level of interest, do we know how to live up to a title, or what?

Full Review | comment Comment
07/15/08
Jules Brenner
Cinema Signals
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2/4

I wonder if all this worked better as a book. It begins modestly interesting, but becomes merely agitated.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/10/08
Frederica Mathewes-Green
Christianity Today
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C

Didn't we invent film festivals so we could sequester all the star-studded 'how I spent my summer vacation' indie film projects and keep them out of our arthouses?

Full Review | comment Comment
07/10/08
Noel Murray
Onion AV Club
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N/A

Although this is no 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', Matthew Broderick does return to Chicago for a wonderful, wacky little gem.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/08/08
Jeanne Kaplan
Kaplan vs. Kaplan
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N/A

There is some suspense as to the fate of that baseball card.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/08/08
David Kaplan
Kaplan vs. Kaplan
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2/5

A slog through determined wackiness, it's apt to leave audiences cold.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/07/08
Amy Nicholson
Boxoffice Magazine
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2.5/5

The actors look as if they’re having a reasonably fine time, but there’s no sense of commitment here, no sense that this was a movie that absolutely, passionately had to be made.

comment Comment
07/04/08
Manohla Dargis
New York Times
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2/4

A mild pleasure from one end to the other, but not much more.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/04/08
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
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N/A

Smart and well-written, filled with good lines and just enough offbeat moments to make it interesting, not annoying.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Lewis Beale
Film Journal International
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2/4

Striving for low-key character comedy, Diminished Capacity ends up diminishing its returns.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Michael Phillips
Chicago Tribune
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2.5/4

It has moments of sweetness, but not enough poignancy or wit to turn it into the endearing art-house comedy that it aspires to be.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Claudia Puig
USA Today
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2.5/5

The problem with this film ... is that it features too many other sad sack characters who ... contribute to an excess of sad-sackness.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/03/08
Christopher Campbell
Cinematical
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2/6

Great, just what we needed: another rote exercise in indie-feely humanism.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/02/08
David Fear
Time Out New York
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2.5/5

A movie about memory loss shouldn't be so forgettable.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/02/08
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com
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2/5

Bland indie comedy isn't very memorable.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/02/08
James Rocchi
Common Sense
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N/A

Diminished Capacity is blessed with a blue-ribbon cast.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/02/08
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer
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N/A

It’s the kind of lite movie you go and see with your mom, and she’ll say she liked it -- but then a year later, you’re both trying to remember what it was even about.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/01/08
Nick Pinkerton
Village Voice
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5.5/10

A mediocre effort that never really goes anywhere and never really pays off, trying too hard to be funny without delivering on the premises introduced over the course of the movie.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/01/08
Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net
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