Igby Goes Down Critic Reviews

Igby Goes Down got a reaction from me: I think it's the movie of the year. I squirmed, I laughed a lot.Read the full review

Gets weirder and meaner and darker and sadder as it progresses, which is amazing since it simultaneously remains funny and horrifying right up to the end.Read the full review

A dead-on sense of how rich kids live and talk today, a sense of the melancholy of a dysfunctional family, and some great dark laughs.Read the full review

Wickedly funny, jarringly transgressive, obdurately unpigeonholeable and startlingly moving.Read the full review

Across the board, the performances testify, often hilariously, to the pain these characters feel and inflict but are incapable of expressing.Read the full review

An inspired example of the story in which the adolescent hero discovers that the world sucks, people are phonies, and sex is a consolation. Because the genre is well established, what makes the movie fresh is smart writing, skewed characters, and the title performance by Kieran Culkin.Read the full review

Young Kieran Culkin holds his own against a stellar ensemble in Igby Goes Down, a family comedy so dark it turns "The Royal Tennebaums" into latter-day Bradys.Read the full review

Gives the impression of spontaneity while being meticulously planned. Most importantly, Steers and Culkin know that the best way to evoke sympathy is never to beg for it; by the end, their achievement seems hard-won.Read the full review

Although Igby has its share of glitches and tonal inconsistencies, it packs an emotional wallop similar to that of another cultural golden oldie as beloved in its way as "The Catcher in the Rye": "The Graduate."Read the full review