Avis Metacritic

Byington excels at turning the edict that time waits for no one into a sensory experience. No matter how sly it gets, Somebody Up There Likes Me still retains that fundamental truth.

Despite knowingly blank performances and a heavily ironic tone, the story ultimately accumulates emotional gravity, ending with a sardonic refection on the seasonal cycle of life that is worthy of a Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller novel. Tragedy is comedy. Comedy is tragedy. So it goes.

The film has a sarcastic tone, like that of a friend who you never can tell is kidding or not, which eventually breaks through into a place of unexpected sincerity. Meeting this odd, idiosyncratic "Somebody" is a rare delight.

Each scene is a brisk vignette of deadpan reversal, often involving a running theme of miscommunication.

The whole thing comes off as a fairy tale bordering on hallucination, perhaps the vision of life that passes before the eyes at death.

Bob Byington's perspective may be above it all, but that doesn't quite account for the shades of melancholy that pop up unexpectedly in lines of dialogue and in some of the performances.

It’s all kind of cute. Maybe a little too cute, but it does have a nice circle-of-life ending. And along the way, Mr. Byington shows a knack for observational humor, slipping in sly jokes that force you to keep paying attention despite the slim plot. Droll and interesting; just not very substantial.

The time-killing universe Byington has created makes sure we never forget how absurd he thinks the whole movie is. Fun for him, perhaps.

Bob Byington’s fifth feature — his best-known previous film was 2009’s equally gormless "Harmony And Me" — will play like the worst kind of performance art, in which contempt for conventional entertainment functions like a badge of integrity. You have to work pretty damn hard to make Nick Offerman this unfunny.

If nonchalance were an Olympic sport, Max would be a gold medalist, and watching Somebody Up There Likes Me is about as much fun as being a spectator at that event might sound.