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VIDEO RELEASE
Jul 8, 2003 (DVD)
Jul 8, 2003 (VHS)
NUMBERS
Box Office: $60,283
details...
CONSENSUS
Bartleby is a rather dull affair, stretched over a too-long running time.
CAST & CREW
Crispin Glover, David Paymer, Glenne Headly
Directed by Jonathan Parker
more...
SYNOPSIS
Former musician Jonathan Parker makes his feature film directorial debut with a modern retelling of the Herman Melville classic, BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER. more...
MPAA RATING
PG-13, some sexual content
RUNTIME
83 minutes
RELEASE DATES
Theatrical: Mar 10, 2001
GENRE
Comedies, Black Comedy, Music
OFFICIAL SITE
• The Official Bartleby Site
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TIDBITS
LINKS
SUBMIT/EDIT ARTICLE
SUBMIT USER REVIEW
FORUM
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 "With a small budget and a brilliant team, director/co-writer Jonathan Parker has brought new relevance to Bartleby's revolt, and converted an office sitcom format into a damning critique of the way many people spend their days."
-- Erica Abeel, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
 "under-rehearsed and lifeless"
-- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE
"Quirky and understated office comedy with Crispin Glover as the guy who would prefer not to work, but likes to hang around."
-- Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, THEMOVIECHICKS.COM
"Parker should be commended for taking a fresh approach to familiar material, but his determination to remain true to the original text leads him to adopt a somewhat mannered tone ... that ultimately dulls the human tragedy at the story's core."
-- Ken Fox, TV GUIDE'S MOVIE GUIDE
"Co-writer/director Jonathan Parker's attempts to fashion a Brazil-like, hyper-real satire fall dreadfully short."
-- Mike Gregory, REEL.COM
"Is office work really as alienating as 'Bartleby' so effectively makes it?"
-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE
"It's nice to see Piscopo again after all these years, and Chaykin and Headly are priceless."
-- Eric Lurio, GREENWICH VILLAGE GAZETTE
"An intriguing near-miss."
-- Moira MacDonald, SEATTLE TIMES
"From its nauseating spinning credits sequence to a very talented but underutilized supporting cast, Bartleby squanders as much as it gives out."
-- Christopher Null, FILMCRITIC.COM
"It's surprisingly bland despite the heavy doses of weird performances and direction."
-- Gerry Shamray, SUN NEWSPAPERS OF CLEVELAND
"As satisfyingly odd and intriguing a tale as it was a century and a half ago...has a delightfully dour, deadpan tone and stylistic consistency."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"Parker updates the setting in an attempt to make the film relevant today, without fully understanding what it was that made the story relevant in the first place."
-- Luke Y. Thompson, NEW TIMES
"You will likely prefer to keep on watching."
-- Phil Villarreal, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
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"Jonathan Parker's Bartleby should have been the be-all-end-all of the modern-office anomie films."
-- Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE
"As a feature-length film, it wears out its welcome as tryingly as the title character."
-- Christine James, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
"A much more successful translation than its most famous previous film adaptation, writer-director Anthony Friedman's similarly updated 1970 British production."
-- Joe Leydon, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
"Director Jonathan Parker gets points simply for trying to tackle the writings of Herman Melville."
-- Dan Lybarger, KANSAS CITY STAR
"The most repugnant adaptation of a classic text since Roland Joffé and Demi Moore's The Scarlet Letter."
-- Joe McGovern, MATINEE MAGAZINE
"Though this film can be clumsy, its ambitions are equally -- and admirably -- uncommercial."
-- Charles Savage, MIAMI HERALD
"While Glover, the irrepressible eccentric of River's Edge, Dead Man and Back to the Future, is perfect casting for the role, he represents Bartleby's main overall flaw."
-- Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
"Funny, somber, absurd, and, finally, achingly sad, Bartleby is a fine, understated piece of filmmaking."
-- Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, POPMATTERS
"It's a film that hinges on its casting, and Glover really doesn't fit the part."
-- Jeff Vice, DESERET NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY
"While Parker and co-writer Catherine di Napoli are faithful to Melville’s plotline, they and a fully engaged supporting cast ... have made the old boy’s characters more quick-witted than any English Lit major would have thought possible."
-- Chuck Wilson, L.A. WEEKLY
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ROTTEN 20%
Avg. Rating: 4.4/10 |
"A Frankenstein mishmash that careens from dark satire to cartoonish slapstick, Bartleby performs neither one very well."
-- Gary Dowell, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"I admire it and yet cannot recommend it, because it overstays its natural running time."
-- Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
"What was subtle and mystifying in the novella is now broad and farcical."
-- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
"Bartleby is a one-joke movie, and a bad joke at that."
-- Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Hard to resist."
-- Eric Harrison, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
"This is a shrewd and effective film from a director who understands how to create and sustain a mood."
-- Mick LaSalle, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"The movie, like Bartleby, is something of a stiff -- an extra-dry office comedy that seems twice as long as its 83 minutes."
-- John Monaghan, DETROIT FREE PRESS
"Except for Paymer as the boss who ultimately expresses empathy for Bartleby's pain, the performances are so stylized as to be drained of human emotion."
-- Carrie Rickey, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
"I liked the original short story but this movie, even at an hour and twenty-some minutes, it's too long and it goes nowhere."
-- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER
"Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence, composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor, or an absurdist workplace sitcom."
-- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
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"Wanna know how to make 80 minutes magically feel like five hours? Just sit through this dragging adaptation of the little-known Herman Melville novella 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'"
-- E! ONLINE
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* Who are the Approved Tomatometer Critics?
* Mouse over a tomato icon for a publication's original rating. Original rating not available for every publication.
* In fairness to critics whose last name begins with a letter at the end of the alphabet, certain pages are sorted in reverse order, z-a.
* Certain "Bartleby" article data provided by the Movie Review Query Engine.
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mikecandance
| In my bedroom, you'll find: "Plates and cups from midnight snacking, taped episodes of the Golden Girls and a body pillow shaped like a catfish." |
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