63
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinIf it was finally the book's whimsical side that endeared it to so many readers, the movie is missing none of that charm. If anything, it's got a little more...A gentle, intelligent film and an interesting one.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe movie version of Garp, however, left me entertained but unmoved, and perhaps the movie's basic failing is that it did not inspire me to walk out on it. Something has to be wrong with a film that can take material as intractable as Garp and make it palatable.
- 75The Associated PressBob ThomasThe Associated PressBob ThomasRobin Williams discards his Morkisms for a credible portrait of the fated hero, and the rest of the cast is remarkably good, especially Mary Beth Hurt as his wife, Glenn Close as his mother and John Lithgow as the transsexual former tight end of the Philadelphia Eagles. [23 July 1982]
- 70Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrNothing convinces, but the film is fitfully appealing.
- 60EmpireWilliam ThomasEmpireWilliam ThomasThe script might have benefited from being directed by someone more daring, instead George Roy Hill settles for more mainstream territory.
- 60Time OutTime OutWilliams is cuddly enough as the man whose talents for nurturing a family are constantly undermined by a malign fate, and there is a performance of some dignity from Lithgow as a six-and-a-half-foot ex-pro footballer transsexual. But it's the kind of movie which is brave - or stupid - enough to ask the meaning of life without having enough arse in its breeches to warrant a reply.
- 60Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyWilliams, might have been more aggressive. Otherwise, director Roy Hill has done about as well as you can when translating word to image, not only through plot, but via the repetition of symbols: primitive, obvious ones -- the toad, a death's head costume, a child's clumsy drawings. After two hours and 20 minutes, all the parables and paradoxes join in a sluggish whole. And we wind up where we began, up in the air without a tail gunner. [23 July 1982, p.11]
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineEmpty shortening of Irving's book reaches for profundity, and comes up courageous but brainless.
- 50Miami HeraldBill CosfordMiami HeraldBill CosfordThe World According to Garp is another of those films that fairly cries out for Robert Altman, who makes movies the way John Irving writes books. Altman doesn't seem to be making movies any more, so this is as close we're able to get to Garp, and it's not close enough. [23 July 1982, p.D10]