Despite some weaknesses in the script, Howard and his cast create a moving family drama that is a must-see, especially for LGBT audiences.

| Dec 8, 2022

Claire Danes is a revelation, playing a character that flips the script on gender-based parenting norms. Her character is abrasive, annoying, even abusive, as she deals with the anxiety of not knowing how to raise her child.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Danes gives it her very considerable best, but there is something weirdly inhibited about this movie.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 2, 2020

A Kid Like Jake is a necessary movie in theory, but that doesn't mean it works or feels entirely authentic.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 24, 2020

A contemporary premise with serious dramatic potential is all but squandered by dull direction and emotionally clinical acting.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 23, 2020

A Kid Like Jake is not a revolutionary film by any means, but one of the best things about it is that it's not trying to be.

| Original Score: B | Oct 23, 2018

It's well acted, but you never fully feel the narrative weight of the story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 11, 2018

It's a demonstration of a parent's most innate instinct: to protect their child, while also intimating that love and understanding is the ultimate protection.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 27, 2018

Watching adults complicate an already complicated situation is good theater, but what A Kid Like Jake needed more of was childlike wonderment. With it, it could have been a film with deeper impact, not just a conversation starter.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 4, 2018

Dull and lifeless filmmaking about dull and lifeless people.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 4, 2018

It's a daring premise, which makes Howard's fluffy approach to the material all the more frustrating.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 27, 2018

A Kid Like Jake dances around its central subject.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 22, 2018

But the filmmakers seem to hold back from other confrontations, and their subplots involving the boy's pushy grandmother (the great Ann Dowd) and a brittle client (Amy Landecker) of the therapist father ultimately fizzle.

| Jun 21, 2018

Well-meaning, yet detached concept that veers 'way off balance because there's too little focus on young Jake.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jun 21, 2018

An issue film that doesn't completely come to life.

| Jun 20, 2018

Mostly the light touch is refreshing, an approach that says the issue is just another one of many that must be weighed when raising a child.

| Jun 15, 2018

It does not justify the jump from stage to screen.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 15, 2018

The movie's premise sounds like it should be the basis for a barbed satire of the finest proportions. Instead, it opts for a tone that is decidedly sober and lacking any kind of sharp edge.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 14, 2018

Some of this material is too sensitive, granted, to have a very young actor play it. But "Jake" goes too far the other way, giving us only glimpses of the boy, who emerges as more of a symbol than a real child.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 13, 2018

It's like the Alex-and-Greg of woke-era problem pictures: bright, earnest and compassionate, if maybe just a little too much in its own head.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 13, 2018