The Man from Elysian Fields Critic Reviews

This is a grown-up movie, in its humor and in its wisdom about life. You need to have lived a little to understand the complexities of Tobias Allcott, who is played by James Coburn with a pitch-perfect balance between sadness and sardonic wit.Read the full review

A shimmering fable of innocence and experience set in contemporary Los Angeles and Pasadena (its title is a nod to Virgil's "Aeneid"). Phillip Jayson Lasker's tartly knowing script, with the kind of witty dialogue that's all but vanished from American movies, recalls Hickenlooper's "The Low Life."Read the full review

Jagger the actor is someone you want to see again. Eat your heart out, Madonna.Read the full review

Less a fantasy than a somber, enveloping mood piece, which is a large part of what makes it so strangely, irrationally compelling.Read the full review

A fine cast further illuminates a felicitous script.Read the full review

By the end, after an hour and a half of wondering -- sometimes amusedly, sometimes impatiently -- just what this strenuously unconventional movie is supposed to be, you discover that the answer is as conventional as can be.Read the full review

May not be perfect but must be given credit for all that it does right.Read the full review

Somewhere in this movie, amid the ponderous exchanges and unfortunate O. Henry-style coincidences, there's American tragedy.Read the full review

A listless, predictable effort, occasionally redeemed by witty lines and charismatic performers.Read the full review