With exquisite tenderness and delicacy, Old Joy fluidly captures the all-too-frequent occurrence of friends drifting apart as their lives branch off in different directions.
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09/18/09
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Old Joy (2006)
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Reviews Counted:82
Fresh:69
Rotten:13
Average Rating:7.2/10
Consensus: A serene, melancholy beauty permeates this meditative portrait of deep friendship and faded glory.
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Reviews for Old Joy
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04/23/09
Annoying, blank, and bereft of any narrative arc "Old Joy" has nothing familiar or enchanting to recommend it.
04/21/09
The film is like a haiku that one can only interpret through their own experience.
07/30/08
A subtle, elegant meditation on friendship and identity in a cultural moment where honest cultivation of either is treated like a luxury.
02/01/08
A minimalist stroll not worth taking...but if Old Joy doesn't do much, at least it doesn't do it for very long.
05/01/07
Old Joy may be built around a road trip, but it's also a movie about two roads -- and two souls -- diverging.
03/15/07
Top CriticReichardt’s low-budget feature, shot in one weekend with a skeleton crew, quietly observes both men and passes judgment on neither. It’s a minimalist masterpiece.
03/09/07
You may find yourself asking whether anything's going to happen. But for those who can tolerate a slow-brewing movie, [director] Reichardt's work provides sufficient rewards.
03/09/07
Top CriticSubdued, artistic, with beautifully nuanced performances that are as true as they are often elusive of commercial triumph.
03/09/07
Top CriticThere are whispers of bigger themes present -- the changing nature of friendship, the co-opting of '90s "alternative" culture into the mainstream -- but, for the most part, much of what you get out of the film depends what you bring to it.
02/23/07
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02/17/07
Some movies say a lot by saying little; Old Joy seems content to just stay quiet.
02/02/07
A minimalist piece to be savoured like a good short story.
01/28/07
Like a Raymond Carver story, it seems nothing much at first sight, but its crystallised moment reveals further dimensions the more you muse on it.
01/28/07
A surprising denouement provides poignancy, repaying the goodwill the film inspires through its mellow combinations of music and imagery.
01/28/07
You would be perfectly at liberty to find it boring and empty, but also to understand the tiny resonances that have made it one of the best reviewed films of 2006 in America. Somehow it does strike home.
01/26/07
Too slight to really haunt, but its subtlety is as treasurable as an old friend.
01/26/07
A spare and satisfying experience.
01/26/07
An unassuming, minimalist gem that shows how less can be much, much more.
01/26/07
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August 24, 2006:
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