This might have been better as an intimate drama about mental illness and it doesn't have time to explore all of its themes.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2018

It's a bummer of a movie -- dark and at cross-purposes with both itself and any image do-over [Gibson] might be seeking.

| Oct 7, 2011

This is a wholly wasted opportunity for Gibson -- and a disappointing misfire from Foster.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Aug 1, 2011

Foster's curious movie is at once a realisation of the kind of "risky" script that never gets made and an unwitting signifier of typical Hollywood contrivance.

| Jun 21, 2011

It isn't offensive, or antisemitic, or actionable, so there's some relief -- but it is very embarrassing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2011

Contrived, self-admiring and self-pitying, unfunny, burdened with a central performance which is unendurably conceited and charmless.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 16, 2011

Fitfully compelling, a welcome antidote to more formulaic Hollywood fare, and deserving of more than embarrassed sniggers.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 16, 2011

It's commendable to capture depression on film, but a talking rodent and a fallen star aren't the way to do so.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2011

A story that should be savagely funny and tauntingly surreal, at least for part of its arc, drifts into problem-of-the-week terrain.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2011

Beyond the initial idea, this is kid gloves filmmaking, when what we need is a bit more of the gloves-off stuff.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2011

It never quite comes together in a satisfying way, but it's still a brave, strange, brain-stirring piece of filmmaking.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 13, 2011

I'm still hoping for a sequel in which Jodie gives Mel a puppet cockerel.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 12, 2011

But the movie ends spectacularly, and is filled with wonderfully nuanced and three-dimensional performances from Gibson, Yelchin and Lawrence that are undeniably fantastic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 3, 2011

The acting throughout -- Foster, Lawrence, Yelchin -- is superb, and this may well be Gibson's finest performance, just as it's Foster's most balanced job of directing.

| Original Score: A- | May 20, 2011

The film is amusing, then melancholy, then weirdly funny, then not. It's a quiet, measured work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2011

With The Beaver, Gibson shows that for all his personal turmoil, he still may have a career in the twilight years.

| May 20, 2011

For all his recent travails, Gibson remains a formidable film-maker (Apocalypto was a tour de force) and a strong screen presence. He is simply not right for his role here.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 20, 2011

For a film about the real problem of mental illness, it never feels authentic. Depression is not something neatly tied up. If this is meant as an allegory, it's vague and unconvincing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 20, 2011

Gibson's performance as Walter Black ranks among the best of his career.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 19, 2011

The main problem with the film, competently but rather blandly directed by Foster, is that you can't believe this fairy tale for a moment.

Full Review | May 17, 2011