60
Despite strong performances and a witty script, Sometimes Always Never lays on the homage a little too thick for its own good, shortchanging itself by imitating a particularly idiosyncratic style.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Strong casting keeps the film thriving through its many winding subplots.
75
The film unites its seemingly disparate strands of somber drama and deadpan comedy into a surprisingly cohesive whole.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
Whimsical and wistful, if occasionally a little too self-consciously kooky, British comedy-drama Sometimes Always Never constructs a pleasant portrait of a mildly unhappy family living in the English northwest.
75
Sometimes, the script is very funny; always, it tries too hard to please; and it never lets you forget that it has been calculated down to a smirk and a teardrop.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
This film is a distinct, articulate pleasure.
63
Sometimes Always Never has enough outside-looking-in charm, and Nighy, to make it nice fit to any Anglophile filmgoer.
80
The hesitancy of the storytelling, with its comforting lulls and odd delays, is a funny sort of boon.
80
The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide
The precision in the shot composition is mirrored in the storytelling – there’s an unassuming elegance that balances the eccentricity of a film that makes something as mundane as Scrabble into a taut dramatic device.