There is both melancholy and whimsy in this close encounters of the lonesome kind, a delightful fable about discovering the comfort of community -- spacelings welcome, too -- in old age.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2024

I’ll be darned if there isn’t something to this thing.

| Feb 8, 2024

Though the movie's zany forays into sci-fi territory do sometimes boggle the mind, they never undermine the genuine emotion in Jules’ raw grappling with the experience of aging.

| Jan 2, 2024

The picture is elevated by its handling of melancholy themes of ageing and loneliness, and a superb gruff-yet-vulnerable performance from Kingsley.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 31, 2023

The real power in the film, however, besides the soothing layer of whimsy and Kingsley’s achingly vulnerable performance, is in the metaphorical implication of the title character.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 29, 2023

This is a sentimental and folksy film, and the ending is a little garbled, but there is a gentleness and sweetness there, and Kingsley carries it off very well.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 26, 2023

a gentle, somewhat mawkish allegory of Milton’s encroaching twilight years – for coinciding with Jules’ arrival is the early onset of the widower’s cognitive decline, so that he too is on a slow, difficult journey both home and heavenwards.

| Dec 23, 2023

Poignant, affecting, and often laugh-out-loud funny, Jules is a joyous treat that will warm even the coldest of winter hearts.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 20, 2023

Funny, quirky & delightfully out of this world. Love a story that celebrates kindness to strangers (even those from another planet)… a good movie in under an hour and a half is such a rarity these days!

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 5, 2023

Despite telling a story we've seen many times before, Jules feels remarkably fresh. With its laid-back pacing, sweet emotional core and the occasional surprise, it's an unexpected delight.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2023

Director Marc Turtletaub keeps the mood light, though there's a poignant undertow to a story that's as much about being allowed to grow old with dignity as it is about an extraterrestrial.

| Oct 25, 2023

Sensitive, intelligent, sweet, and presented with considerable integrity, right down to the direction, which is scrupulous in not showing anything that doesn't actually need to be seen.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 25, 2023

Older people are the likely target audience for Jules, although the characters are so endearing, and funny, anyone with an interest in what makes us human will find the film laugh-out-loud enjoyable.

| Oct 25, 2023

As fanciful as it may seem, “Jules” is really a comment on aging and loneliness.

| Oct 25, 2023

Quon, a Hollywood stuntwoman wearing a prosthetic suit, turns in an astonishingly moving silent performance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 25, 2023

Unashamedly sentimental, with a plot as ridiculous as that garish hairdo, Jules underneath it all is that rarest of modern movies: a heartwarming tale about people of a certain age finding comfort, community, and companionship in one another.

| Oct 25, 2023

the character grows on you over time, even if he never quite achieves a real sense of emotional connection, which is why the film’s heavier lifting has to be done by the subplots involving the inescapable effects of advanced age

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 6, 2023

Director Marc Turtletaub, who has a long track as a producer and finds himself within the age range of his actors, treats this theme with the correct finesse. [Full review in Spanish]

| Oct 5, 2023

What sounds like the same old story is actually one of the year’s most pleasant surprises.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 3, 2023

The acting by Kingsley, Sansom, and Curtin is magnificent. Jade Quon plays the alien, and her performance is magical. Without uttering a word, Quon creates a character that alters our preconceived notions about how movies like this should proceed.

| Sep 25, 2023