Old Joy (2006)

A

The film is like a haiku that one can only interpret through their own experience.

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07/30/08

N/A

A subtle, elegant meditation on friendship and identity in a cultural moment where honest cultivation of either is treated like a luxury.

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02/01/08

C-

A minimalist stroll not worth taking...but if Old Joy doesn't do much, at least it doesn't do it for very long.

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05/01/07

3.5/4

Reichardt’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.

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03/09/07

4/4

There 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.

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02/23/07

2.5/5

Some movies say a lot by saying little; Old Joy seems content to just stay quiet.

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02/02/07

N/A

A minimalist piece to be savoured like a good short story.

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01/28/07

N/A

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.

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01/28/07

4/5

A surprising denouement provides poignancy, repaying the goodwill the film inspires through its mellow combinations of music and imagery.

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01/28/07

3/5

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.

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01/26/07

3/5

Too slight to really haunt, but its subtlety is as treasurable as an old friend.

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01/26/07

3/5

A spare and satisfying experience.

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01/26/07

4/5

An unassuming, minimalist gem that shows how less can be much, much more.

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01/26/07

4/5

Notable for its visual beauty, its melancholic Yo La Tengo score and its subtle performances, it's an impressively understated and sensitively observed work.

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01/26/07

4/6

Such watchful reticence takes a bold, confident filmmaker.

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01/26/07

4/5

Making exceptional use of stillness and silence, this is a rather sad study of the passing of traditional concepts of American masculinity along with the landscape that forged them.

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01/25/07