There There seems like Bujalski’s answer to a film like Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person. But where that film was beautifully organic, this one is purely schematic.

| Jul 27, 2023

The most engaging scenes feature Molly Gordon who has consistently been a formidable presence in films. However, the burden of this film’s script and Covid protocols are too much for her to carry on her own.

| Jul 25, 2023

Pursues complicated truth instead of pointing at a simplified version of it.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 3, 2023

Its gentle yet abrasive approach to what people say – and leave unsaid – proves quietly revelatory.

| Jun 6, 2023

About half the vignettes are keepers...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 5, 2023

There There should have been titled Nothing There, in case people are looking for a movie with a coherent plot or interesting characters. It's one of those tedious independent films that tries to fool people into thinking that its shallow idiocy is cool.

| Mar 4, 2023

The plain looking and cleverly made high concept film is without the director's usual fastball.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 26, 2022

There There skews its world ever so slightly, arriving at some nicely off-kilter insights amid its non sequiturs, but for all its neat tricks, function is definitely following form here.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 23, 2022

Featuring plenty of dialogue yet without much to say about faith and human connection, this experimental ensemble piece winds up being constrained by its visual gimmicks.

| Nov 23, 2022

Though the backdrop of Covid might cast these thematic ideas in a somewhat unfavorable, reductive light, There There transcends the potential gimmick factor of its production circumstance to achieve a remarkable synthesis.

| Nov 23, 2022

While the effort to make a film during the pandemic must be commended, the static images and dull conversations give us nothing to latch on to.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Nov 22, 2022

Bujalski’s writing is sometimes sharp. But there’s no real point to these loosely linked episodes, individually or as a whole, unless a general “people suck” message counts.

| Nov 21, 2022

It’s disconnected, largely lacking emotional impact, and wasteful of a talented cast. Yet it slides by on the charm of these performers and the occasional wit of its script.

| Original Score: C | Nov 21, 2022

If the resulting film feels like little more than the cinematic equivalent of a series of B-sides of varying quality strung together, it at least whets the appetite for the next proper cinematic album that Bujalski releases.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 21, 2022

While Bujalski has done this same thing beautifully in his past works, the attempt here feels thin and shrill, especially as it goes along.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 19, 2022

There There is not reveling in its own constructedness so much as showing its work, being open about having no motive beyond provoking thought.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 18, 2022

I was more impressed with There There than I am in love with it, but it is another successful example of a filmmaker taking pandemic-era restrictions and making something unique and modestly fulfilling out of them.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 18, 2022

There There doesn't come to life, even as an intellectual or artistic exercise.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 18, 2022

It's a laughable exercise...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Nov 18, 2022

There There sees Bujalski in a new situation, as an off-site director. Relying on his strong editing to create the impression that you’re between the two people in the intimate conversations he’s conjured.

| Original Score: 65/100 | Nov 18, 2022