Metacritic reviews

While Olympic Trials don’t usually tend to be the sort of milieu that readily lend themselves to quirky comedy, the engagingly amusing Tracktown quite capably goes the distance.

[Pappas] and co-director and co-writer Jeremy Teicher have created a funny, sweet movie that explores the struggles of a serious athlete without alienating those whose sneakers are gathering dust in the closet.

Fact and fiction blend nicely in Tracktown.

It’s a coming-of-age tale for the stunted set, and one that deftly navigates conventions at every turn. Although Tracktown lacks edge, it’s just so relentlessly sweet and Pappas is so effervescent on screen that those missteps in tone are easy to forgive.

Trackdown goes down easy, and the character portraits are just interesting enough to hold our attention. But you can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a more interesting movie that cut closer to home.

What the film lacks in originality, it makes up for via its star’s naturally glamor-resistant sensibility, giving us an unpolished glimpse into the personal life of a professional runner.

Although Tracktown presents itself as adorably, harmlessly twee, I wished Pappas had tapped deeper into the dark side she hints at — the side that makes her protagonist more concerned about being a winner than about being a person.