Critic Reviews

• Daniel M. Kimmel, Variety

  ...a teen sex comedy for the grown-up arthouse crowd.

• A.O. Scott, New York Times

  To say that this movie is true to life is only to say that it's banal, boring and confusing.

• Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

  Wirey Spindell is as idiosyncratic as the name of its hero, which gives this surprisingly affecting film its title.

• Jessica Winter, Village Voice

  Ambiguously autobiographical (and, per usual, sooty-lensed.

• Michael Dequina, TheMovieReport.com

  Where writer-director Eric Schaeffer shoots himself in the foot is by succumbing to the narcissistic voice within.

• Nathan Rabin, AV Club

  Long, shapeless, and painfully unfunny, Wirey Spindell confirms its maker's status as one of the most distinctively awful filmmakers of his generation.

• Chris Gore, Film Threat

  The first pleasant surprise of 2000.

• Brent Simon, Entertainment Today

  A naked attempt at Jerry Maguire-style profundity that elicited 47 temple rubs and 13 audible Jesuses between my companion and I... the comedic equivalent of flat soda.

• Mike Kerrigan, Boxoffice Magazine

  The big puzzle is why anyone would want to get within 50 feet of the guy, let alone marry him.

• Scott Renshaw, Apollo Guide

  As annoying and self-indulgent as the film may be, it can only seem irredeemable once Schaeffer has confirmed what you already suspected -- that he's using the film to trot out every oddball anecdote from his own life.

• Matt Reichl, Reel.com

  Easily the best film that writer-director Eric Schaeffer (My Life's in Turnaround, Fall, If Lucy Fell) has made in his short career as the king of narcissistic indie cinema. But that's like saying that some hate crimes are preferable to others.

• Peter Henne, Film Journal International

  What is appallingly lacking in the film is recognizing the possibility that this person's life might be one big bundle of irresponsibility.

• Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

  Schaeffer needs to realize that there are few universals in his stories and way too many specifics, and it takes more than a weird name like Wirey Spindell to make a person really distinctive.

• Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve

  For the most part Mr. Schaeffer, by mixing melodrama and comedy in ways that they do not combine, neither shows how Wirey's early life is so terrible that he winds up a drugged and drunken misfit nor jogs the comedy to a level beyond the mildly amusing.

Read all 14 critic reviews