Flannel Pajamas (2005)
Average Rating: 5.6/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 22
Flannel Pajamas is a talky and overwrought love story that is redeemed by fine performances and character insights.
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 6
Flannel Pajamas is a talky and overwrought love story that is redeemed by fine performances and character insights.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 13,229
My Rating
Movie Info
When a blind date arranged by mutual friends results in a whirlwind courtship for an enchanted young couple, the pair soon discover that fate may not ultimately be so kind in director Jeff Lipsky's affecting romance. As the rain poured down on the night that they first met, Stuart and Nicole sat mesmerized in a small diner, wondering if life could truly get any better than it was in those early, magical moments. In the coming weeks they found that indeed life could get better, but as the young
Cast
-
Justin Kirk
Stuart Sawyer -
Julianne Nicholson
Nicole Reilly -
Rebecca Schull
Elizabeth -
Jamie Harrold
Jordan -
Chelsea Altman
Tess -
Michele Federer
Tara -
Tom Bower
Bill -
Stephanie Roth Haberle
Megan -
George Riddle
Calvin -
Lauren Bittner
Amanda -
Stephanie March
Cathy -
Kirby Mitchell
Winston -
Jamie Harris
Brad -
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All Critics (44) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (22) | DVD (2)
Flannel Pajamas is so gorged with gab it feels like a filibuster.
Top CriticBetter to rent Scenes From a Marriage, Manhattan or My Dinner With Andre and stay home -- flannel pajamas optional.
In his sophomore feature, Lipsky doesn't feel the need to pump the movie with showy visual tricks. You don't even know he's there most of the time, which is probably a compliment.
Flannel Pajamas is a sharply observed dissection of a couple's relationship, from blind date to marriage to difficulties over everything from whether to get a dog to when to have a baby.
This is all quite fascinating.
This is the kind of introspective drama in which a determined pair of young, very fine actors and a strong filmmaker put everything on the line to explore emotional truth wherever it exists.
Twenty minutes or so of cuts would probably have helped the movie pack a more potent punch.
They ought to have cut both the film and the marriage a little shorter.
The incisive moments of recognizable humanity, though, are outnumbered by those of awkward obviousness.
Maybe Lipsky's been too direct in his screenplay; he makes us feel like informed witnesses to their relationship rather than participants. Which means, we spend most of the movie thinking, just break up already, please.
It's a harsh look at a love that seems good until it isn't any more... and frankly, I got tired of both of these people long before they got tired of each other.
[Writer/director] Lipsky has something to say about the impossibility of human beings to love each other, but his language is that of an amateur playwright who does not know when he is only repeating cliches.
Both Nicholson and Kirk are terrific actors, but the script limits them and their performances.
Kirk and Nicholson provide solid acting throughout the movie. Lipsky's writing is frequently original. However, the overall sense of this film is that it lacks credibility.
With "Flannel Pajamas" Lipsky has written an excellent off-Broadway play, not a film.
Audience Reviews for Flannel Pajamas
Super Reviewer
What is interesting is the film's attempt to give us intelligent characters. It is as though Lipsky saw a Woody Allen movie and said, "I want characters who read in my film too!" Except, when Stuart goes off on his complex analysis of Nicole's character, it is more presumptuous than accurate, more like an authorial voice than his.
Structurally, Flannel Pajamas is a mess. Many of the "other things" that interfere in this couple's relationship seem to come from left field. This is particularly true of the mother-in-law's antisemitism, which was so radical a departure from the action that I wondered if this film was too autobiographical ... or simply poorly made.
But for all its flaws, I found myself charmed by Flannel Pajamas. I think I respect what the film was trying to do, even though it never got there. After all, life's events, which intrude on our relationships, never happen in manner conducive to good story-telling.
Overall, see a real Woody Allen movie or Scenes from a Marriage instead, but if you've seen all of these, then scrape Flannel Pajamas off the bottom of the barrel.
Super Reviewer
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