Sensitively considers the potential for liberation of the mind from the shackles of the aging body, no matter how deteriorated that physical human essence might be.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2007

There is a certain meditative grace to the cinematography here, but after a while, well, I was just plain bored.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 1, 2006

It's a slight movie, setting a poignant scene but not quite filling out even its running time. Still, I like its wry sense of humor and compassionate heart.

| Original Score: B- | May 15, 2005

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 14, 2005

There is a tender, poignant story in here... worthy of a great 20-minute short, not enough to fill writer-director Elliot Greenebaum's rambling mock-documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 13, 2005

Has a few enlightening moments but has just as many that are tedious.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 13, 2005

Watching the movie is like conducting a conversation with a loved one stricken by Alzheimer's: It's at once moving and maddening.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 5, 2005

The whimsy Greenebaum wants to construct can't match the terminal sadness that naturally takes over the film.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 29, 2005

Becomes an affecting story about the bond that develops between shiftless Todd and Mrs. Pearlman.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2005

Assisted Living is a remarkably moving look at the prisons in our midst that most of us manage to ignore until we need them.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Maggie Riley, a former circus performer who suffered two strokes and a heart attack during the filming of this movie, is a revelation in this role [Mrs. Pearlman].

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 19, 2005

A blend of fact and fiction that feels like a breath of fresh air in a medium that too often trivializes the hard realities of age.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 15, 2005

Authentically unconventional -- opening in the form of an almost convincing mock documentary -- but it gradually evolves into something more deeply affecting.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 14, 2005

It's a sensitive portrayal of a jolly, caring environment that unwittingly converts its charges into helpless infants.

Full Review | Apr 14, 2005

Viewers who complain about the subject being "depressing" and "uncomfortable" are either missing the point, or simply haven't been to a nursing home in a really long time.

Full Review | Apr 1, 2005

Works more than it doesn't, though it's easy to conclude that the film exploits some of the elderly in the movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 1, 2005

Assisted Living is both funny and sad and, in the end, it is truly heartwarming.

| Mar 24, 2005

Says more about aging in America...than all the sweet but false fables Hollywood has manufactured about the elderly. It's worth seeking out.

| Original Score: B | Mar 22, 2005

Todd and Mrs. Pearlman are interesting characters you want to spend time with and get to know thanks to the fine performances by Michael Bonsignore and Maggie Riley.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 21, 2005

In this lovely and loving film, the comedy is mellow and the mood is intimate.

| Original Score: B | Mar 17, 2005