Maladies

All of the actors, including Franco, do excellent work, given the limitations imposed upon them by a scenario that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Were he a struggling up-and-comer rather than a movie star, the perception of an ambitious misfire like this one would probably be quite different. It’s not a good movie, but it deserves better than mockery.

A ponderous, self-important character study swimming with red herrings.

This is basically a studied and serious film, but there's a feyness to its tone, and a lethargy to its pacing that make it difficult to warm to, even if the principal actors give it their all.

It only ever connects in the small moments that fall through the cracks of the supposed formal and thematic experimentation—when the fine actors are allowed to walk and talk like real human beings, rather than a collection of tropes.

The social construction of illness is certainly a worthy topic, but Carter situates his characters far from any semblance of a plot and even further from his heart.

There’s scant emotional, aesthetic or intellectual gratification in this grainy, flat-looking portrait of the artist as a young nut job.

Overrated, overexposed and overindulgent, James Franco is all over the place, like cow chips in the abandoned pasture of a derelict farm.