Critic Reviews

• Maureen M. Hart, Chicago Tribune

  Be prepared: Humboldt County is a slow starter. But what appears to be the cliched uptight nerd liberated by flighty sprite tale evolves into something deeper, darker, more resonant.

• Joe Leydon, Variety

  An amiably paced, character-driven comedy-drama about a disenchanted student who finds himself among the unreconstructed hippies and second-generation fringe dwellers who farm marijuana in the Lost Coast region of Northern California.

• Kyle Smith, New York Post

  Possibly it might be of some interest with the right amount of buzz, but then so is a passing cloud.

• Stephen Holden, New York Times

  So much pot is smoked in the agreeable drama Humboldt County that you may come away from it with a contact high.

• David Fear, Time Out New York

  Though the movie achieves that New Hollywood contact high only in fits and starts, this familial drama still leaves a pleasant buzz.

• Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

  Humboldt County has an impressive cast and captures some of that era's fuzzy rebelliousness and humanism, but taken on its own the picture is finally thin stuff.

• Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze

  A culture clash movie pitting '60s free spirit internal exiles against the dog-eat-dog success obsessed youth of today, and that may similarly divide critics along these generation gap lines.

• Jay Antani, Filmcritic.com

  the whole thing feels wrong and cheeky

• Jules Brenner, Cinema Signals

  It becomes an endearing journey, even with the shock of Bogart's sudden departure from the scene and the movie's change of pace.

• Don R. Lewis, Film Threat

  The characters are so well defined, the acting so top-notch and the cinematography so stunning, I was able to forgive what I saw as script issues.

• Ethan Alter, Giant Magazine

  The movie's neither funny enough nor filled with enough dramatic tension to keep us invested in Peter's halting journey of self-discovery.

• Doris Toumarkine, Film Journal International

  Dud drama about a med-school failure from L.A. who finds himself amidst pot-growing hippies in a remote corner of the eponymous "Lost Coast" county.

• Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

  Humboldt County's doleful charm -- verdant, lovely, ominous, final -- leaves little room for idealistic dreams or even the promise of romantic redemption.

• Bill White, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  For an idea of how Humboldt County plays, imagine a Lifetime original movie about a loveable but pathetic couple who passed their druggy lifestyle on to the next generation.

• Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine

  The indie folk on the soundtrack teeter the film perilously close to another emo Gen-X flick about discovering who you really are, man, yet its quiet assurance hoists it to the top of genre.

• Brian Orndorf, BrianOrndorf.com

  While the concept of the movie is tuned into all those warm, important questions of purpose, the execution lacks gravity, making the picture one long, slow spiral into melodramatic hogwash.

• Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze

  A culture clash movie pitting '60s free spirit internal exiles against the dog-eat-dog success obsessed youth of today, and that may similarly divide critics along these generation gap lines.

• Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

  Friction is of a schematic sort that all too often seems mainly intent on recalling spiritual predecessors Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces.

Read all 18 critic reviews