81
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThere’s joy in watching a movie like You, the Living. It is flawless in what it does, and we have no idea what that is. It’s in sympathy with its characters. It shares their sorrow, and yet is amused that each thinks his suffering is unique.
- 100The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottThe film is slow, rigorously morose and often painful in its blunt reckoning of disappointment and failure. It is also extremely funny.
- 88New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoAndersson has a one-of-a-kind style that not all viewers will appreciate. His humor is not at all like Hollywood’s. His is leisurely and cerebral — two words never heard in La La Land.
- 88Slant MagazineNick SchagerSlant MagazineNick SchagerHumor and sorrow are equally immediate emotions throughout, whether in the writer-director's traditionally structured setup-punchline scenes or his strange non sequiturs
- 80Village VoiceNick PinkertonVillage VoiceNick PinkertonYou, the Living flips through 50-some single-panel vignettes, many very funny.
- 80EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonRecalling the work of Jacques Tati, this is a grim but amusing and ultimately successful effort.
- 70L.A. WeeklyL.A. WeeklyAndersson particularly delights in left-outs: the guy who can’t squeeze into the bus stop during a downpour; the natty little suitor getting his bouquet smashed in a slamming door. The sum total is the reflection of a worldview -- sad sack, bordering on “Everybody Hurts” black-velvet sad-clown bathos -- rather than any narrative.
- 70Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasYou, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain.
- 67The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasYou, The Living, if only by virtue of a more intimate scale than Songs, benefits from a lightness of touch and even a thin sliver of optimism in some sequences.
- 60Time OutKeith UhlichTime OutKeith UhlichThe ideologies underlying Andersson’s oft-astonishing succession of extreme wide-angle, vanishing-point tableaux are a decidedly acquired taste.