100
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
This is a film to see and then see again, to soak in and marvel at and -- like its director -- try to keep up with.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
67
The A.V. Club by Ben Kenigsberg
Basically, Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? amounts to two men having a mellow discussion about the nature of ideas; it’s formally limited, yet wide-ranging in its material and ambitions. Call it a case of cognitive dissonance.
90
Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey
I don't know whether the tall man is happy, but I do know that Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? is intellectually and visually groundbreaking, and most certainly a film.
91
The Playlist by Charlie Schmidlin
To his credit (and without affectation), Gondry doesn’t cloak the fact that he is often perplexed by his subject. Because of his confusion though, we are able to learn quite a lot.
91
Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? bears the stamp of Gondry quirk but allows it to feel a lot more intimate than anything he's done since "Eternal Sunshine."
80
The point, of course, is to get lost. As the soft-spoken sage himself notes, “The world is a very puzzling place.” What a pleasure it is, the film suggests, to be perpetually befuddled.
70
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Blissfully unconventional as a documentary and as an intellectual endeavor, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? won’t tell you everything you’ve always wanted to know about Mr. Chomsky, but its modesty is one of its strengths, along with Mr. Gondry’s entrancing, vibrant illustrations.
60
Even though Gondry and Chomsky’s very different sensibilities don’t mesh in such a way that either man’s work gains substantially from the alliance, they’re each such good company individually that Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? is still entertaining.
80
Gondry and his frisky hieroglyphs successfully convey Chomsky’s concept of language as the fleeting “meanings we impose on fragmentary experience.”
88
Slant Magazine by Steve Macfarlane
A magnificently quizzical diagram of two ceaselessly inquiring minds in perfect tandem, like a raw X-ray of atomized creativity.