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.
Comment
11/13/09
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)
44
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:27
Fresh:12
Rotten:15
Average Rating:5.2/10
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.
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... [More]
Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles
Director: John Krasinski
Reviews for Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
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.
11/12/09
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.
11/05/09
The movie provides more questions than answers.
10/31/09
A haunting exploration into men's minds that becomes too much of a psychological study to qualify as accessible entertainment for most.
10/12/09
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.
09/28/09
Tthough this experiment doesn’t quite succeed, there’s enough intelligence and insight in this movie to make it worth the attempt.
09/28/09
[Krasinski's] generosity of intent is really the main impression that remains. He read, he loved, and unfortunately, he did not conquer.
09/28/09
Too awkward, disjointed and bland while lacking dramatic momentum and true insight.
09/27/09
Actor John Krasinski deserves credit for having the ambition to adapt material as difficult as David Foster Wallace's short stories.
09/25/09
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.
09/25/09
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.
09/25/09
The Penis Monologues!
09/25/09
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.
09/25/09
Top CriticCompacted 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.
09/25/09
Top CriticSometimes humorous, sometimes repulsive, never insightful, the movie comes off like the work of an overeager college student.
09/24/09
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
09/24/09
Krasinski preserves Wallace's whooshing roller coasters of words, powered by the fuel of confession.
09/23/09
Whatever it was about Hideous Men that so deeply affected Krasinski the college student has been lost in translation.
09/23/09
The question is, could someone turn these full-frontal-dudity snapshots into a satisfying, cohesive movie? Answer: no, but not for lack of trying.
09/23/09
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