Robert Wilonsky

The cynics will scoff and dismiss it all as manipulative, the heartstring-tugging machine on hyperdrive. But this movie isn't for them; did you not see the PG? It's a sweet, sincere, utterly affable kids' movie about how parents are all kinds of screwed up and unable to tell their kids what they want or show them how they feel.

It really happened, it's really corny, and it's really great.

This is the smart-ass stoner's "E.T.," the movie the fanboy parent won't be able to hand down like some tattered, squeaky-clean memento to their action-figure-collecting kids. It's just not quite right without Wright, who could have helped Frost and Pegg stuff Mel Brooks back into their Han Solo Underoos.

It's the most uplifting movie of a numbing year -- a feel-good film full of songs about feeling god-awful.

As giddy and antic as any great Warner Bros. cartoon of the 1930s and '40s -- it bears seeing more than once, if only to allow for the sight gags that play second fiddle to the plot, a rarity in animation -- but also resonant and real. In other words, it's the perfect movie.

This movie would be worth feting in any season. It's wrenching but never manipulative, stoic but never dull, exhausting but never wearying.

What makes About Schmidt so extraordinary is how ordinary its tale is; it's a gray picture about gray people looking for some kind of meaning in their gray lives.

It is a remarkable achievement in filmmaking, a beautiful and brutal work.

The performances are uniformly remarkable.

Feels like something entirely brand-new; such are the gifts of Kaufman and Gondry, inventors and magicians.