Metacritic reviews

An understated movie that, in turns, is funny and heart-breaking and uplifting, Manny & Lo is a work that burrows under your skin and makes you impatient for the next project from first-time feature filmmaker Lisa Krueger.

What I like about movies like this is the way they keep us involved until the end. There is no formula that we can project; “Thelma & Louise” was clearly heading for an act of self-destruction, but here we have no idea what to expect, except (inevitably) the birth of a child.

With its carefully-modulated combination of light comedy and drama, the film casts a gentle spell.

MANNY & LO grows on you, largely because of the charm of its youngest cast member, Scarlett Johansson, who plays 11-years-old Amanda.

Lisa Krueger's "Manny & Lo" is the most original and unexpected family-values film of the year. [09 Aug 1996, p.C8]

It's the kind of story that leaves viewers with a warm glow.

Following in the footsteps of "Thelma & Louise" and all the other fugitive comedy-drama-romances, "Manny & Lo" can't quite convince us it really belongs. Paradoxically, it's because much of the movie rings so true, that some crucial parts of the story ring so false. [30 Aug 1996, p.J]

With her first feature, "Manny & Lo," writer-director Lisa Krueger reveals a distinctive style. Though employing no surreal devices and remaining within a realistic convention, Krueger takes the story of two young sisters on their own and somehow makes it seem unreal, strange, outside time.

Despite the imaginative setup and the original sensibility, pic ultimately suffers from a slight, rather contrived narrative and a lack of secondary characters.

A rather tedious kidnapping movie by writer-director Lisa Krueger, despite the novelty of the kidnappers (Scarlett Johansson and Aleksa Palladino) being sisters, one of whom is pregnant, and the kidnapped person being a nurse (Mary Kay Place) needed to assist with the childbirth.