Metacritic-Rezensionen

Wood is excellent, but this is a career highlight for Douglas. His depiction of the manic Charlie stays surprisingly grounded and prevents the story from being a naive celebration of mental illness as a kind of freedom that it so easily could have become.

It's as if the star (Douglas) finally gets to integrate all his onscreen personas, all at once.

In updating Shakespeare’s "The Tempest," writer-director Mike Cahill focuses on the magic worth finding between a father and daughter. That’s why the film sticks with you. It’s a gift.

With Douglas, the film's shambling charms slowly catch hold, thanks mainly to his personal magnetism.

Douglas is a manic joy, and Wood manages to hang on for the ride.

The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.

The film has a great visual style and manages to show Los Angeles in a fresh way that the average Hollywood eye isn’t used to, while, on the acting front, Evan Rachel Wood surpasses Michael Douglas in scenes, solidifying herself as an actor to look out for.

King of California may look and feel realistic, but it is really a Don Quixote-like fable about nonconformity and pursuing your impossible dream to the very end.

Hard to tell what’s more annoying in this empty character study of eccentrics and the suckers who love them: the braying, blurting soundtrack or Douglas himself, who can’t find his way into a man tortured by dull demons.

A caper comedy that forgot to put in the laughs.