Private Life [is] such an affecting-and ultimately devastating-work.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 26, 2018

Kayli Carter bridges the ache and absurdity and becomes the movie's salvation, just as her character, Sadie, tries to be.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 26, 2018

This lived-in and often-hilarious drama is a richly rewarding experience -and features a whopper of a closing shot.

| Oct 22, 2018

Everything works about this film except for a dubious ending that makes the couple look less sympathetic. A crowd-pleaser.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 15, 2018

Private Life is an intimate drama we've seen before, but it leads to so many provocative questions about the individual versus the family.

| Oct 15, 2018

Perhaps most importantly, it's a reminder that Tamara Jenkins is a vital voice in a landscape that's become increasingly, painfully unfriendly to what she does best.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 8, 2018

Scenes of painful turmoil play like skillful script readings rather than life events.

| Oct 8, 2018

The film gets a lot of mileage out of the quotidian parts of New York City life, from the Wild Nova at Russ and Daughters to opposite side of the street parking.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 8, 2018

[Director Tamara] Jenkins's talent for everyday doses of acid and irony is here.

| Oct 5, 2018

"Private Life" gives us an intrusive and often funny look into a couple's struggle to conceive. If only director Tamara Jenkins' dramedy stayed as grounded as its relatable premise.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 5, 2018

Private Life mostly avoids doling out clunky exposition, but one gets the sense that Jenkins could answer even the most minute questions about her characters' backstories.

| Original Score: B | Oct 5, 2018

Hahn is one of the best actresses working today, and it's a thrill to see her at the center of a film, jagged with heartbreak, rage, hormones. This is a role worthy of her tremendous gifts.

| Oct 5, 2018

This film is a reminder that the smallness of life can feel huge when we're in the middle of it.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 5, 2018

Private Life will stand as one of the high points of Giamatti and Hahn's respective careers.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 5, 2018

What an intelligent, emotionally grown-up film. More of this please.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 5, 2018

The struggle to conceive isn't a new subject, but this comedy drama highlights its fraughtness and absurdity via a perceptive, often hilarious script and two hugely likeable leads in Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 5, 2018

In Richard [director Tamara] Jenkins has created a role that fits Mr. Giamatti, who has always been great at comic gloom, like a glove that should have been one size larger.

| Oct 4, 2018

Jenkins has made a film about marriage and family and personhood, catching Rachel and Richard at a time in their lives where something is missing, and a child just seems like that crucial piece of the puzzle.

| Oct 4, 2018

Even as Jenkins brings out the angst, her inner comic strategist remains hard at work, building sly jokes into the edge of the frame; she has a talent for rendering comedy and tragedy virtually indistinguishable.

| Oct 4, 2018

"Private Life" earns its laughs, to be sure. But more important, it earns the tears of recognition that fall, gently and warmly, between the yuks.

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