Critic Reviews
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Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
Credit Gondry, like Tocqueville before him, with at least re-examining tired clichés and scraping the rust off stereotypes.
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Linda Barnard, Toronto Star
An occasionally interesting glimpse into the lives of a diverse group of urban teens and their struggles, but also a film that's overly long and often annoying.
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Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
All of the kids are good in their roles, mostly as characters one assumes resemble themselves. And as any actor will tell you, playing yourself is one of the toughest gigs around.
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Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Gondry has talent, and I think he enjoyed being with these youngsters, but the film suffers in trying to impose something vaguely like a story on a framework that boils down to teen high jinks during a bus ride.
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John Hartl, Seattle Times
"The We and the I" is a collection of very thin stories, many of which feel incomplete.
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Elizabeth Horkley, Philadelphia Inquirer
Organic interactions are interrupted by Gondry's words, or abandoned in favor of fantasy sequences. The film's verisimilitude too often takes a backseat to conventional storytelling and Gondry's whimsical aesthetic.
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Radheyan Simonpillai, NOW Toronto
Gondry is like a DJ scratching a record. He puts his own touches to the sound of the Bronx while staying true to its beat.
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Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Gondry's film is like a huge community, alive and -- despite a layer of protective swagger -- full of sympathy and love.
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Brent Simon, Shared Darkness
An artful, scrambled, energetic blend of youthful connection and hormonally charged carousing [that] works more as a caffeinated conveyance of feeling than an actual plotted story.
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Beverly Berning, culturevulture.net
French director Michel Gondry takes a select group of Bronx teenagers, puts them on a bus, and lets them loose. For some of us, it's a scary ride.
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Todd Jorgenson, Cinemalogue.com
Gondry captures some intermittent compelling moments, but overall the film lacks much depth or insight.
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Sean Axmaker, Seattle Weekly
The We and the I is less a film than a social-studies experiment, an after-school project by a bunch of high-school kids exploring that eternal teen tension between the individual and the group.
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Kelly Vance, East Bay Express
Imagine a student video project with professional production values.
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Marc Mohan, Oregonian
By the end of the line, we've been granted a privileged peek at today's youth that's intimidating and nostalgia-inducing in equal measure.
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S. Jhoanna Robledo, Common Sense Media
Realistic look at teen culture has drinking, sex, language.
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Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com
Exuberantly finds the universality of adolescence. . . [in] a running theme of. . .peers vs. individual--how 1 plus 1 equals 3, when in groups, they become like someone else.
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Ethan Alter, Television Without Pity
Michel Gondry gets back to his low-budget roots and rediscovers his formidable formal playfulness in the process.
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Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com
Ambition only carries the viewing experience so far, as most of the effort is strangled by a persistent unpleasantness and Gondry's tone-deaf way with establishing sympathy for this public transit motley crew.
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Fr. Chris Carpenter, Movie Dearest
A return to successful form for (director Michel) Gondry after 2011's wretched "The Green Hornet"...captures the modern teen spirit, lingo and reliance on technology exceptionally well.
Read all 19 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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There is certain kind of authenticy in Michel Gondry's new film The We and the I, but most of the part it is just like most of the teenagers in this film; noisy, uncertain and confused.
I do admire the risks that director Gondry often takes with his art. He is by far one of the… More
There is certain kind of authenticy in Michel Gondry's new film The We and the I, but most of the part it is just like most of the teenagers in this film; noisy, uncertain and confused.
I do admire the risks that director Gondry often takes with his art. He is by far one of the most talented music video directors around and his films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Scinece of Sleep has shown great innovation and talent. The We and the I is more closer to his critically acclaimed documentary Blockparty, which i myself did not care that much.
There is a moment in this film where things do shape up into a more coherent storyline and all the yelling and bullying steps aside, but that moment comes way too late. For the first hour into this film i just felt annoyed and did not like any of these characters that much. They all just seem to to be bullies with smartmouth and the way they treat each other and passengers is quite harsh and insulting. I did not find no sympathy towards them. In the final fifteen minutes things do luckily go much better direction when Gondry finally forces his characters to look into a mirror. I still think that it all came way too late to make any difference at that point.
There are moments that has raw hypnotic power in them but mostly this is just chaotic mess from Gondry.
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The kind of outspoken and honest portrait of youth that is extremely efficient with the use of non-professional actors and a loose storytelling, rambling on from one casual talk to another while always keeping our full interest in the flesh-and-bone characters.
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âThe We and the Iâ? is not as memorable as Michel Gondry's more popular works, âEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindâ? and âThe Science of Sleep.â? It comes across as muddled and all over the place initially but as the narrative progresses, it becomes a much cohesive and… More
âThe We and the Iâ? is not as memorable as Michel Gondry's more popular works, âEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindâ? and âThe Science of Sleep.â? It comes across as muddled and all over the place initially but as the narrative progresses, it becomes a much cohesive and heartfelt dramedy. The film has sort of a mockumentary style to it â" raw and unpolished, and its characters appear very spontaneous in what they say or do, which has both an up and downside. It starts off confusingly juvenile but rounds up with some distinguished performances and poignant moments brought by the young cast.
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