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Movies / Upcoming / Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)

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Reviews Counted:29

Fresh:12

Rotten:17

Average Rating:5.1/10

Consensus: Ambitious but uneven, John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men tries hard but doesn't match the depth of the book.

Genre: Dramas

US Box Office: $0

Synopsis: Based on the book by David Foster Wallace, BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN is a darkly funny and disturbing exploration of men and their complex relationships with women. Sara Quinn is... Based on the book by David Foster Wallace, BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN is a darkly funny and disturbing exploration of men and their complex relationships with women. Sara Quinn is interviewing men as part of her graduate studies. Her intellectual endeavor has emotional consequences as the men's twisted and revealing stories are juxtaposed against the backdrop of her own experience. As she begins to listen closely to the men around her, Sara must ultimately reconcile herself to the darkness that lies below the surface of human interactions. --© IFC [More]

Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles

Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles, Dominic Cooper, Will Forte, Ben Gibbard, Timothy Hutton, Christopher Meloni, Max Minghella, Denis O'Hare, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ben Shenkman

Director: John Krasinski

Director: John Krasinski
Screenwriter: John Krasinski
Producer: Eva Kolodner, Yael Melamede, James Suskin, John Krasinski
Studio: IFC Films

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Reviews for Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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Painfully pretentious and shallow.

Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | comment Comment
11/30/09
Mike McGranaghan
Mike McGranaghan
Aisle Seat

Krasinski re-creates the interviews using Wallace’s original, but this isn’t exactly a letter-of-the-law adaptation -- he tightens the interviews and defangs some of the language.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
11/13/09
Kimberly Jones
Kimberly Jones
Austin Chronicle

Offers is the opportunity for a bunch of actors, many of them tethered to TV series, to deliver theatrical monologues pulsing with misogyny and narcissism. It's like second-rate Neil Labute.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
11/12/09
Steven Rea
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer

The place where consciousness runs into itself is where this author reigned supreme, and Krasinski brings Wallace’s concentric, self-aware ironies to the screen.

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
11/05/09
Jason O'Bryan
Jason O'Bryan
Boston Phoenix

The movie provides more questions than answers.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment Comment
10/31/09
Lisa Ann Cockrel
Lisa Ann Cockrel
Christianity Today

A haunting exploration into men's minds that becomes too much of a psychological study to qualify as accessible entertainment for most.

Full Review Source: Monsters and Critics | comment Comment
10/12/09
Ron Wilkinson
Ron Wilkinson
Monsters and Critics

I worry that this film is static enough and stiff enough that it’s going to keep people away from discovering David Foster Wallace if they haven’t read him.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
09/28/09
Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips
At the Movies

Tthough this experiment doesn’t quite succeed, there’s enough intelligence and insight in this movie to make it worth the attempt.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
09/28/09
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
At the Movies

[Krasinski's] generosity of intent is really the main impression that remains. He read, he loved, and unfortunately, he did not conquer.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
09/28/09
Mary F. Pols
Mary F. Pols
TIME Magazine

Too awkward, disjointed and bland while lacking dramatic momentum and true insight.

Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru | comment 1 Comment
09/27/09
Avi Offer
Avi Offer
NYC Movie Guru

Actor John Krasinski deserves credit for having the ambition to adapt material as difficult as David Foster Wallace's short stories.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
09/25/09
Elizabeth Weitzman
Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

Krasinski literalizes Wallace’s stylistic love of asides too much, but it helps that he’s aware enough of his movie’s limitations to keep Brief Interviews blessedly short.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
09/25/09
Noel Murray
Noel Murray
AV Club

Everyone speaks in the sweatily polysyllabic, Look-at-This-Writing-I'm-Doing tone that makes a page of Wallace pass like an hour on the treadmill, and the men are dopes or creeps.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
09/25/09
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
New York Post

The Penis Monologues!

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
09/25/09
Kam Williams
Kam Williams
NewsBlaze

It's an undeniably ambitious, if uneven, effort. Some of Krasinski's directorial flourishes are inspired, such as Christopher Meloni's imaginative re-telling (and offbeat re-enacting) about a woman he met as she stood crying at the airport.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
09/25/09
Claudia Puig
Claudia Puig
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Compacted into an 80-minute mishmash of interviews, confessions and sketches, melded into a shaky mosaic, the answers from a cross section of men are shallow, self-serving and ultimately unenlightening.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
09/25/09
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Sometimes humorous, sometimes repulsive, never insightful, the movie comes off like the work of an overeager college student.

Full Review Source: Metromix.com | comment Comment
09/24/09
Geoff Berkshire
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com

Krasinski stitches these raw blasts of the subconscious with interludes that exude a pleasing, Woody Allen-esque tone, all fall colors and potent theorizing over white wine

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
09/24/09
Chris Barsanti
Chris Barsanti
Filmcritic.com

Krasinski preserves Wallace's whooshing roller coasters of words, powered by the fuel of confession.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
09/23/09
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Whatever it was about Hideous Men that so deeply affected Krasinski the college student has been lost in translation.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
09/23/09
Chuck Wilson
Chuck Wilson
Village Voice
 
 
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