Critic Reviews

Joan’s peculiar kind of charm is mostly owed to Allen, who gives what might be the most complex, layered performance of her career.

Joan’s story unfolds all too neatly, but in Allen’s spark and grace there’s a real sense of discovery.

The movie is not entirely my cup of tea, although it is refreshing in its depiction of diverse, older female characters.

It’s less the story of a woman taking a year off from city life and her husband than it is a pleasant revue of sketches and scenarios on that topic.

Instead of a hearty chowder of emotional highs and lows, first-time director Alexander Janko, who also adapted the script, settles for a diluted, Campbell’s-Soup version of getting one’s groove back.

Unfortunately, this overlong picture rarely feels particularly authentic.

Nothing much happens here. It’s scenic, but writer-director Alexander Janko has cast the thing with no flavor. Nobody has an accent, not even the local Cape Cod characters.

Year by the Sea is for audiences who don’t trust the shiftiness of nuance and craft, of messages that rise up from dramatic situations rather than being pasted on top of them, and who would prefer their life lessons stated loudly and for maximum applicability.

Even women will lose their man cards if they buy a ticket to Year by the Sea, a figurative and nearly retch-inducing celebration of the ovary based on a best-selling memoir by Joan Anderson.