Lullaby 2014

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Writer/director Andrew Levitas needlessly pads this captivating theme with over-used tropes ... Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The film seems endless and sentimental, and the writing is too philosophical to keep the audience awake. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: A tortured weepie that can't quite figure out what sort of movie it is, "Lullaby" wears out its welcome fairly quickly. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Variety: It's easy to picture the principal action staged as a more taut and powerful play. Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: The movie falls flat in its attempts to show how moments of absurdity break familial tension, as Levitas interrupts every bit of weary comic relief with more histrionics. Read more

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: A raft of fine actors -- including Amy Adams, Richard Jenkins, and Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay -- are wasted in a sour, callow family drama that mistakes constant yelling for emotional tension and fortune-cookie aphorisms for wisdom. Read more

Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter: This feature debut deals mainly in cliches, never transforming the tough question at its center into compelling cinema. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: With the ever-expanding number of adults able to stay alive longer because of medical advancements, quality-of-life issues are top of mind for many folks. It's the way the filmmaker makes the point that is the problem. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The digital photography is crummy, and the characters who most need to convince ... feel created out of whole cloth. Polyester cloth, at that. Read more

Graham Fuller, New York Daily News: Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard are wasted in tiny parts, as is Amy Adams as the lost love of the sulky rocker. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The kind of manipulative, cliche-infested hokum that alienates moviegoers by its insistence on hogging all the tears. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: A film like "Lullaby" should both enlighten and inspire debate. Instead, it feels simultaneously superficial and overbearing, albeit with a few moments that do indeed resonate. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: Rarely has the terminal seemed as interminable as it does in Lullaby, writer-director Andrew Levitas's tedious saga of a family reuniting at the deathbed of their paterfamilias. Read more