The Oranges 2011

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Light as a feather, the movie is at times a modest pleasure, but inconsequential. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: How could a movie starring Hugh Laurie, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney and Catherine Keener go so wrong? Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: In the end, The Oranges does not quite deliver the goods. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a familiar story made fresh by actors who know how to make each breath matter. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The kind of open-ended, character-driven light melodrama that might've been better served as an HBO series. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Laurie and Meester are both likable actors, and a good thing; otherwise the audience reaction would probably be something similar to that of their families. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "The Oranges" is a pleasant little farce that never works up enough steam and that undercuts its players with thin writing and characterizations. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: If you think you've seen this already, that's because you have. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Julian Farino ... [works] so hard to convince us of the Deep Inner Goodness of everyone involved. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Plays out like a bizarro rom-com, the music and tone indicating we should be cheering on a new couple while our sense of personal appropriateness nags at our rah-rah emotions. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: Flirting with farce, the film never gets out of comic first gear. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: You know the movie has an insurmountable problem when the two adulterers, who profess to be madly in love, don't even seem like they want to be in the same room. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "The Oranges" hits and misses at random. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: You want something that plays a little sharper, and cuts a little deeper. You want something that demands more of its performers, and delivers more to its audience. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: What I liked was the movie's feel for the emotional mess and ambivalence of family ties, and its openness without hysteria to the fact that some of those ties might fray beyond repair. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: As a seven-year veteran of the New Jersey suburban experience, I can testify that it nails the milieu's specifics. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Oranges displays an air of efficient economy. Nothing is messy, no beat too long, the actors hit their marks. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Its concerns are not the usual movie concerns, and it takes what might have been a standard plot in some unexpected directions. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: When it's funny, it's laugh-out-loud funny, yet when the situation calls for groans of vicarious embarrassment, it provides them in spades. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The Oranges" is a watered-down dramedy with little sense of place - or human behavior. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The Oranges does not taste freshly squeezed. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: The leafy green trees evident everywhere in what purports to be New Jersey Christmas scenes aren't the only thing that feels off in the predictable domestic bedroom comedy The Oranges. Read more

Guy Lodge, Time Out: The intervention of Tony Soprano, who lives not far away, is urgently called for. Read more

Eric Hynes, Time Out: Oh, suburbia: how we love condescending to thee. Read more

Chris Packham, Village Voice: Kind of like a takedown of the suburbs written by the people who designed the menu at Olive Garden: It's inoffensive, forgettable, and you don't actually have to chew anything. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Less of a laugh riot than it should be. Read more