Love and Other Catastrophes

Time Out by

Made on a shoestring by a bunch of film school graduates (director and co-writer Croghan was 23 at the time), this sweet, brisk campus comedy has a refreshingly current feel. For once, you believe the actors are the age they're playing. The romantic musical chairs are routine, but Croghan has a light touch, and a shrewd eye for the rules of attraction. It's too unassuming to be brattily obnoxious.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

At it’s core, it’s just another youth-culture flick about the search for love. It’s also a mediocre bid to join the shoestring pantheon of such filmic self-starters as Spike Lee (She’s Gotta Have It) and Kevin Smith (Clerks).

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

A slight romantic comedy about five winsome Australian university students who fret and joke about their romantic woes when not talking about movies and cinematic theories. Each has a charming quirk — one (Frances O’Connor) is a cute lesbian, another (Alice Garner) is writing a thesis on Doris Day — but none is deeper than a bag of Reese’s Pieces.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

There's a lot of potential charm here, but the director, Emma-Kate Croghan, is so distracted by stylistic quirks that the characters are forever being upstaged by the shots they're in.

San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein

It looks like a low-budget film, but in this case that just adds to the charm. Croghan's only false move was to divide her film into segments, each one introduced by a quote from a famous writer.

San Francisco Examiner by Walter Addiego

Throughout, Croghan knows where she wants to go, but has no fresh ideas for getting there. The characters are reasonably appealing, but the jokes are mostly weak.