Modest and good-looking, the film starts as dark comedy and ends in pathos. Director Alvarez makes the Oregon scenery a character unto itself.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 20, 2013

People who approach it as a film in its own right, with its own rhythms and goals and pleasures, will be amply rewarded.

| Sep 20, 2013

Despite smatterings of wit and a stable of skilled performers, "C.O.G." struggles to find a consistent tone, its episodic structure veering from farcical to poignant to dangerously raw.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 19, 2013

a dramedy that keeps you guessing where the main character is going (emotionally and physically) as he drifts from one odd situation to the next.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 19, 2013

The film features snappy, hilarious bits among the coming-of-age vignettes, but it loses momentum as it winds toward a finish. You won't grow bored with the characters, but you might check your watch a few times.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 19, 2013

For Sedaris fans, "C.O.G." is a regrettably patronizing washout.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2013

"C.O.G" is like a collage of Americana from the perspective of someone incapable of comprehending its value.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 19, 2013

Writer-director Kyle Patrick Alvarez blends pointed satire with gallows humor, much like Sedaris himself.

| Sep 19, 2013

Bolstered by beautiful cinematographic framing that expresses his alienation, the film strikes a fine balance between hilarity and heartbreak.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 19, 2013

Alvarez rides a fine line with the Candide-esque nature of the story, pointing out the absurdities of the people that David meets along the way but never skirting the fact that wiseacre David has a lot to learn about the real world.

| Sep 19, 2013

There are some who have complained that C.O.G. ends too abruptly, but it has the bracing, devastating punctuation of a fine short story.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 19, 2013

As an adaptation of Davis Sedaris's short essay from his acclaimed 1997 compilation, Naked, it's a letdown, as it doesn't exude the pop of the author's trademark humor.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 18, 2013

The ace in the hole is Groff, who fluidly slides between lip-curled sarcasm and teary-eyed vulnerability-he's the embodiment of the thrill and terror of being a not-so-little boy lost.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 17, 2013

What was very funny in print becomes serious and occasionally dour onscreen, with fewer laughs than you would expect from a Sedaris project.

| Sep 17, 2013

Strong performances throughout and a pair of truly stellar ones make the flaws of C.O.G. easier to overlook and it continues to bolster the reputation of Alvarez as a notable young filmmaker worth watching.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5.0 | Apr 24, 2013

The source material may be David Sedaris (this marks the first time the essayist has allowed one of his pieces to be adapted), but the tone couldn't be more Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who once again steers auds to some gloriously uncomfortable places.

| Jan 22, 2013

Don't expect a rash of David Sedaris screen adaptations to be sparked by this bland effort.

| Jan 22, 2013

A compassionate light drama about the uneven path we all must take on the road to self-discovery, C.O.G. offers one lovely, heartfelt scene after another.

Full Review | Jan 22, 2013