How bad are the reviews for Darling Companion, Lawrence Kasdan‘s new lost-dog movie?
“A new low not just for writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, but for virtually every member of its esteemed cast… A cornucopia of cornball bathos.”
– Slant
“As bland and soft as a nice bowl of oatmeal… Has the look and tempo of a commercial for an arthritis medication.”
– Time
“Heartbreakingly limp.”
– New York Magazine
“If you found ‘Benji the Hunted’ unbearably intense or ‘Marley & Me’ a bit too hard-edged, then ‘Darling Companion’ may be the dog movie for you.”
– New York Times
“Kasdan looks like a flailing, irrelevant has-been… [a] pallid, embarrassing canine comedy that squanders a cast of terrific actors.”
– Salon
“Genially terrible… a therapeutic intervention passing as family dramedy for our times.”
– NPR
“Aimless, tedious and sometimes downright ridiculous… as a director, Kasdan seems frozen in time.”
– Movieline
“Utterly neutered.”
– Associated Press
Ouch!
Andrew O’Hehir of Salon takes a pass at decoding what happened to Lawrence Kasdan after his big win with The Big Chill in 1983:
“[The Big Chill] was such a huge success, and touched the lives of such a vast cohort of baby boomers who were then around 30, that it sent [Kasdan] in entirely the wrong direction. I get it, actually. It would have required superhuman willpower to say: Well, I told a story about my own life and got three Oscar nominations, and a whole generation of college-educated white folks bought into it as being their story too. But I should just go back to writing thrillers and adventure movies because that’s what I’m actually good at!”
Our earlier thoughts about Kasdan here.
