Metacritic-Rezensionen

Like an epic sonnet, with beautiful accompanying music and songs, “Eleanor Rigby” deals with memory, perception and the emotional toll a relationship can have on an individual as much as it deals with the more grandiose themes of love and loss.

While both pieces of the entire package generally work independently of each other, they have just enough ingredients to necessitate a viewing of the whole thing.

For the most part, thanks in great part to Benson’s rich screenplay and Chastain’s nomination-worthy work, I was immersed in this story no matter who was telling the tale.

It’s a measure of Benson’s sure, skillful hand with actors that all the relationships in the movie — husband and wife, parent and child — feel lived-in and true, even when the dialogue strains too hard for the meaningful and poetic.

In this unhurried full version, Benson allows grief to transform his characters, with few guarantees and plenty of regrets.

Intense and engaging performances from Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy bring the well-written screenplay to life.

Derives almost all of its very modest power from its relationship with its better half. McAvoy, turning up the broody charm, isn’t to blame. The trouble is that Conor’s drama, set against the backdrop of a lonely Manhattan, looks even more generic than Eleanor’s.

The main problem with Him is that it takes the form of a generic indie dramedy about a hard-luck dude, desperate for a turnaround in his personal and professional life... Him does have a few scattered moments of Her-like insight and vitality, though.

The thing that catastrophically sinks “Him” – or “Her,” if that's the film you see second – is that the two films are enough alike that sitting through the second immediately after the first is a slog.

No matter how he shuffles the pieces, Mr. Benson can’t shake free of the old storytelling ideas, from his steamroller plot to his programmatic characters and narrative beats that, by their very existence, signal that everything will slide into place as expected.