Irrational Man 2015

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: After a late wobble or two, Irrational Man packs a final, farcical punch that feels just right. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: This is another of Allen's films in which characters advance positions rather than embody them. Very little is allowed to be lastingly funny or suspenseful, and the positions themselves don't feel close to the truth. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: "Irrational Man" ... just may be the nadir of the 79-year-old director's career. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Not exactly a write-off, but nothing memorable, either, Irrational Man is a sardonic exercise in cynicism that will most likely appeal to the same pretentious art-house eggheads it's making fun of. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: Woody Allen contemplates the perfect murder (again) in a darkly funny, intellectually rigorous campus comedy. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Though Irrational Man's existentialist moral crisis is mostly hokum, the movie still has a whiff of charm, thanks to a handful of good one-liners, a little misdirection, and Phoenix's off-kilter performance ... Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Allen builds to a climax that is ridiculous and a comment on ... I don't know. Fate? Folly? There are plenty of both in "Irrational Man," but they're not often a comfortable mix. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: In the end, this feeble effort remains tainted, however unfairly, by the creator's personal life. Maybe Allen should have titled it "Rationalizing Man." Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: In his 60s stand-up act, Allen joked that he once cheated on a metaphysics exam by looking within the soul of the student sitting next to him; 50 years later he's still at it. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Allen is no dummy, but he is also not his own best editor or critic. The tone here is all over the place. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Were it not for Stone's chipperness as Jill, the film, smoothly directed as it is, would be a real slog. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: At the age of 79, Woody Allen is still a formidable filmmaker ("Blue Jasmine" was just two years ago). But he is also, inevitably, Woody Allen. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: Woody Allen has always repeated the same handful of themes in his films, but now even his repetitions are getting repetitious. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: In its own strange, deliberate way the film does wind up feeling surprising, fresh even, as Allen finds new ways to explore some of his most longstanding preoccupations. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Finally, Allen is aware that his May-December romances are preposterous and naive. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Taken on its own, as a stand-alone dark comedy about existential angst, Irrational Man is a wobbly enterprise. But view it in context, as a Woody Allen film, and the plot thickens. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Its obvious weakness, an overall sense of familiarity, is easy to overlook thanks to one of the better casts Allen has assembled in recent years. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Allen's sketch of the campus owes nothing to observations of real students or teachers; the setting and the setup are living abstractions that the trio of lead actors invest with their own vital whimsy. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Flatly shot and dully told, it's just this year's film in what, for Allen, long ago became an unbreakable annual tradition, a way for our most famous amateur existentialist to somehow validate his own existence. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Woody Allen's writing is as sharp as his leading character's morality is fuzzy. And if the director is revisiting territory from Crimes and Misdemeanors in spots, he's working some decently amusing variations here. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Irrational Man" plays, like so much of Woody Allen's work over the past 20 years, like a bad Woody Allen parody. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A film that goes dark without going deep and keeps you wondering just how personal the title "Irrational Man" is or if it's more of an existential shrug. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Allen has crafted a suspenseful mind-teaser that might feel too much like an intellectual exercise if Phoenix and Stone didn't infuse it with such raw humanity. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: You have the feeling it was directed by a piece of software, programmed to make roughly the same choices as a human being who understood cinema, but without knowing why. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It works, more or less; the three central actors are all terrific, particularly Posey, who finds something vulnerable and touching in Rita. But you watch it thinking of other, better Allen movies ... Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The plotting is graceless and the dialogue ham-fisted. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: While it doesn't quite succeed, it's a mournful meditation too sharp and smart to dislike. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Spending time with "Irrational Man" would not be an irrational choice. Read more

Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic: Irrational Man is turgid to the point of ridiculousness and absurdly anachronistic ... Read more

Nathalie Atkinson, Globe and Mail: Ostensibly about the theory and practice of ethics, if the existential dramedy Irrational Man weren't so clumsy it could almost be a self-parody. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A tired exercise in existentialism that apes but doesn't improve upon the writer/director's better work. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The energy levels are low, not helped in the early stages by the film being anchored by Phoenix's mumbling, laconic mess. Read more

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun: Provided you don't look too closely, Irrational Man is a film Woody Allen fans will love. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Allen seems genuinely turned on by this crime-and-punishment fantasy and its erotic trappings, and his engagement carries you along. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: That "Irrational Man" is a sophomoric simulacrum of intellectual discourse reflects the self-deception at the movie's core. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's a Woody Allen film that the next one will make us forget. Read more