Critic Reviews

• David Jenkins, Time Out

  It's never enough to establish any sensitivity or social pertinence beyond the trifling tiffs which are playing out on screen.

• G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

  Joe Swanberg's film wears out its welcome about halfway through its 83 minutes.

• Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times

  [Director] Swanberg nails the inane fun of youth.

• Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune

  Chop off a star if you're not up for highly experimental cinema.

• Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times

  When it works, it works like a charm.

• Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

  Perfectly encapsulates the slow-motion, frustrated feeling of early adulthood, when longing and inchoate desire easily outnumber actual transformative events and achievements.

• David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

  Smart and engaging, but too many meandering breeze-shooting sequences.

• Jamie Russell, Film4

  Less dazed and confused than mumbling and mundane, this drama focuses on social awkwardness and twentysomething blues. Skipping aimlessly from scene to scene it offers little observations and rewards low expectations.

• Wendy Ide, Times [UK]

  There's only so much twentysomething navel-gazing one can listen to before wanting to slap some sense - and some fully formed sentences - into them all.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  There is something teeth-grindingly cutesy about the whole thing, reaching epic levels of dippiness in the, ahem, nude trumpet-playing scenes. That makes it sound interesting, come to think of it, and perhaps it is.

• Tim Evans, Sky Movies

  For every revelatory moment of sharp perception there's an eternity of goofy smiles, stuttered dialogue and embarrassed glances.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  Hannah Takes the Stairs, the latest comedy of mannerisms in the "mumblecore" style, is maddening for 60 of its 83 minutes.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  The film meanders along in conversational style, encouraging improvisational realism but also the thought that maybe these middle-class characters, not quite slackers, are less interesting than they, or the director, think they are.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  Watchable independent drama from the mumblecore crowd, though it's not quite sharp enough, funny enough or insightful enough to really get off the ground and the characters are occasionally irritating.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  Goes full blast on geek chatter.

• Bill Gibron, DVD Verdict

  Adlibbing should be left to Catskills comics, TV talk show hosts, and members of Second City, and that's about it. Nowhere in this numbing 80 minutes of moroseness does anyone say anything remotely reasonable or realistic.

• Marrit Ingman, Austin Chronicle

  Swanberg can be playful behind the camera -- he has a taste for Godardian jump cuts -- and his sense of color is crisp. Gerwig, his millennial Jean Seberg, is no pixie; her captivating ordinariness helps hold the movie together.

• Matt Pais, Metromix.com

  No one involved seems to have any thoughts about why people are selfish and cruel to each other, but they're more than willing to complain about it.

Read all 18 critic reviews