Jack Goes Boating Reviews

It's not easy to adapt a stage play to the screen and make it seem like something other than canned theater, a problem directors have dealt with throughout the history of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

A Podcast with Amy Ryan, star of Gone Baby Gone and Jack Goes Boating.

Full Review

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman, but his directing debut, like so many American Indies, features strong characters cursed by a lack of story, purpose and pacing.

Full Review | Original Score: C

It's a mighty awkward adaptation for such an uncomplicated project...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Take Jack's lead and give this one a miss.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

A sensitively rendered piece which unfortunately lacks sufficient heft to work as either a romantic drama or a musing on life's daily miseries.

Full Review

Hoffman, the unofficial king of indie films, gets a bit too precious with his directorial debut.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Carries an overpowering scent of writerly affectation.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

Sometimes you go to the movies wanting a ridiculous I-love-you! dash to the airport instead of a relentless reflection of your own boring or bile-filled existence.

Full Review

An indescribable little film of behaviors and performance, and while that effort is commendable, the picture can't help but come off insincere, waiting patiently for some sign of cinematic life that isn't completely affected.

Full Review | Original Score: C

To say this snoozy, awkward movie is an 'acting showcase' would be unfair to the vastly superior work these performers have done elsewhere.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Glaudini expects character tics to substitute for plot development.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Just another movie that could be titled Sad Guy in New York.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

A characteristically morose wallow in indie-style shoe-gazing that should only please the most dedicated fans of the talented Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

[T]he oddball-ness of Jack and Connie is strained and -- excellent performances by both actors aside -- fails to ring true...

Full Review

Hoffman is stymied by the difficult task of transforming stage material into a movie; Jack Goes Boating's camera just sits there while actors act.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Jack Goes Boating wasn't a particularly witty or insightfully written play to begin with, and much of its elemental charm has dissipated upon being put to film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Hoffman's directing debut delivers a film so weak I could barely remember what it was about as I left the cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The magnitude of the acting overshadows the modest reach of the material.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

...a periodically passable yet oppressively uneven piece of work.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

Full Review

Full Review