Metacritic reviews

"Them" feels slightly longer than it needs to be and suffers from an unnecessarily busy third act. That being said, Benson's "final" ending is truly a unique choice and a wonderfully moving moment that haunts you as you walk out of the theater.

At its core is a most affecting portrait of two people who love each other, but may no longer be able to live as one, and it is mostly a pleasure to spend two, or three, or five hours in their company.

It is very much a first film, albeit one of rare ambition, and there's every reason to think that Benson will nail it next time around. The film's absolutely worth watching for the performances alone... But in and of itself, the "Them" version of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts.

While Benson treats his characters with care and respect, his depiction of grief can feel studied and not felt.

Despite the sparkling cast and engaging, well-tuned turns from Chastain and McAvoy, the scaled-down script doesn’t carry much weight, bogged down by clunky, Hallmark dialogue.

Although all the main characters and plot points survive the transition intact, they don’t carry the same weight. Him and Her have an undeniable literary, collegiate feeling, like reading a long novel and getting to know the characters inside out. Them steps on the accelerator in a sort of Cliffs Notes version.

Ultimately, Benson's Eleanor Rigby disappears into the gap between its rom-com and drama stools.

“Them” — apart from a few affecting scenes — is a hollow, high-minded folly.

The film abounds in excruciatingly obvious, often precious, articulations of grief, where armchair philosophizing volleys back and forth with punishing abandon.

Just because a film holds back the truth doesn't make the truth suspenseful. It merely shortchanges the filmmaker and the audience from exploring what that truth means.