Before You Know It

The dialogue is clever and the premise witty. It's a New York-y film that has the zip of a farce, without all the nuttiness. (There's a little nuttiness.)

A charming and quirky New York tale, if a bit disorganized, finding its voice when it quiets down to just listen to the three women at the center of the story.

"Before You Know It" isn't without its moments, but it could have used more of them. Sometimes it's a slog.

Before You Know It feels like it fell out of the mid-Eighties -- and that's not a bad thing. In the tradition of Mystic Pizza or Moscow on the Hudson, it finds its humor in the light and shade of its characters, with the odd broader gag.

"Before You Know It" isn't a deep movie, or a hilarious one, and Utt and Tullock probably don't expect it to be. But it is, in its undemanding, almost effortless way, warm and wise and watchable enough to be just this side of wonderful.

[Hannah Pearl Utt] has a deft hand as a director here, as well as an actress.

Hannah Pearl Utt embeds us with a New York theater family just as their lives are coming unstuck...

The script captures the edges of the internal drama within each character without asking them to say everything out loud... It's such a female way of communicating that it gives the film a whole other facet, adding depth to a tub of predictable...

Good performances, whimsical dialogue, and funny moments make this a memorable visit to the cinema.

They turn a potentially complex family journey into silly farce and still expect you to care.