Imaginary Heroes Reviews

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Top Critic
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
March 18, 2005
Although she comes across as bordering on insufferable, we are expected to understand that Sandy is the touchstone of honesty in the film because, like other American films of the Sundance variety, eccentricity signifies emotional authenticity.
Original Score: 2/4
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Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
March 18, 2005
Weaver pretty much keeps Imaginary Heroes aloft.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel
March 11, 2005
Failed ambition is still ambition. Imaginary Heroes may overreach, but it challenges us as it does. That's heroic in any filmmaker.
Original Score: 3/5
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Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
March 11, 2005
An ambitious, uneven directorial debut.
Full Review
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Desson Thomson
Washington Post
March 11, 2005
Conversations, by the way, need to be laconic, cynical and postmodern. Tears take their time, if they come at all.
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Peter Debruge
Miami Herald
March 4, 2005
Imaginary Heroes may not show the directorial confidence of Zach Braff's remarkable Garden State or the emotional depth of A Home at the End of the World, but it's a strong character-driven story all the same.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4
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Tom Long
Detroit News
March 4, 2005
Writer-director Dan Harris piles so many problems on top of a suburban family here that eventually both problems and characters lose impact and believability.
Original Score: C
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John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
March 4, 2005
Imaginary Heroes mines the suburban tragedy of Ordinary People, The Ice Storm and American Beauty, but with only a quarter of the insight.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 3, 2005
The gift of Imaginary Heroes is getting to know these anything- but-ordinary people.
Original Score: 2.5/4
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Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times
February 25, 2005
Enlivened by some good performances, but it's ultimately overfamiliar and slow, and its characters feel like they were dreamed up by a screenwriter -- no one ever seems to breathe real air.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
February 25, 2005
What saves Imaginary Heroes is its essential truthfulness about families, which it reveals, not only in the broad movements of its story but in the small details.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Bruce Westbrook
Houston Chronicle
February 25, 2005
A depressing yarn.
Original Score: 1.5/4
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Robert Denerstein
Denver Rocky Mountain News
February 25, 2005
Harris has made a movie that's not entirely credible. And at times, it seems as if he's doing emotional heavy lifting for which he hasn't properly trained.
Original Score: C-
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Michael Booth
Denver Post
February 25, 2005
Plays like Ordinary People rewritten by someone too young to imitate that film's powerful complications.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
February 25, 2005
What remains when the movie is over is the memory of Sandy and Tim talking, and of a mother who loves her son, understands him, and understands herself in a wry but realistic way.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Mario Tarradell
Dallas Morning News
February 24, 2005
The ending leaves unanswered questions, but it offers enough substance to justify the nearly two-hour commitment.
Full Review | Original Score: B-
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Jeff Strickler
Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 24, 2005
Yes, it's time for another visit to the suburb of Angst, located outside the metropolis of Dysfunction and just a freeway exit away from the tri-city area of Despair, Despondency and Depression.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
February 24, 2005
Except for Weaver's surprisingly funny, bitter performance as the film's grieving, wise-cracking, pot-smoking mother, I didn't much like Heroes -- or rather, I admired part of it without getting much engaged or moved.
Original Score: 2.5/4
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Ty Burr
Boston Globe
February 20, 2005
Harris directs at a funereal pace that snuffs out his script's own wit, and only Weaver keeps the bitter laughs coming.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
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Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
February 16, 2005
These are not ordinary people. Or real ones.
Full Review | Original Score: D-
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