48
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianAndrew PulverThe GuardianAndrew PulverIt's ambitious enough to aim at polished, intelligent character drama, and pulls it off successfully.
- 70The DissolveMike D'AngeloThe DissolveMike D'AngeloThe story’s overall trajectory is familiar, and sometimes clichéd, but it still has the power to surprise and startle from moment to moment, which is what really counts.
- 63McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMcClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreIt’s too long and wildly uneven. And the longer it goes on, the more uneven and oddball it seems.
- 50Slant MagazineSlant MagazineBilly Bob Thornton's ensemble Southern family dramedy fails to subvert its cutesy formula often enough.
- 42The A.V. ClubNick SchagerThe A.V. ClubNick SchagerCharacters scream, throw glasses, screw, and strip nude for the self-gratifying viewing pleasure of others, but Jayne Mansfield’s Car never musters up even the faintest trace of Tennessee Williams-style hothouse drama.
- 40VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangA fine cast can only do so much with the script’s pileup of generational conflict and long-winded introspection, resulting in a willfully out-of-step picture.
- 40Time OutTime OutThere’s ambition here, but little in the way of insight or genuine feeling — just a heavy-handed thesis and some extraneous Southern eccentricity.
- 30The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThematically diffuse, tonally inconsistent and blighted by an inauthentic feel for its story’s time and place, it sits awkwardly between sober human drama and lighter dysfunctional-family turf, constantly striving for unearned emotions.
- 30Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisThe handful of redeeming moments in Jayne Mansfield’s Car belong to Duvall in the role of a septuagenarian who finds himself more and more at odds with a changing world.