A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan IIIMovie Reviews

Poster art for "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III."

Avg. Critic Score: 28 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore^® based on all critic reviews

Information for Parents:

not for kids

Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

60

NPR |
The moody picture even swings toward hopeful in its final minutes, as it tries to celebrate Charles as the man he is, faults and all. It's enough to leave you wondering whether even a glimpse inside this mind is too much. Read full review
50

Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum
No less sweet for being unoriginal: A guy (Charlie Sheen) mourns a bad breakup with the woman he loves (Katheryn Winnick). The execution, on the other hand, is perilously self-absorbed. Read full review
40

Time Out New York | Joshua Rothkopf
Fellini used to get away with such slender crises, but he had Marcello Mastrioanni behind the shades, as well as a more vivid penchant for psychosexual fantasy. Coppola and Swan are stuck in their obsessions with dorky album art and old-man cocktails at Musso & Frank. A precious, arid thing, Glimpse arrives pinned to Styrofoam like a prize arthropod. Read full review
38

Boston Globe | Ty Burr
The actor/walking disaster known as Charlie Sheen gives a perfectly credible performance here. It’s the rest of the film that tries your patience. Read full review
30

The Hollywood Reporter |
With such an in-house cast of extended Coppola family sparklers, one would think things couldn’t go too wrong in the comedy department, but they have little chance to oil the wheels of a creaky script written around Sheen. Read full review
25

New York Post | Lou Lumenick
So feeble it fails even as train-wreck exploitation. I’d be unkind, but not entirely inaccurate, to label Coppola’s sophomoric, er, sophomore effort as a director an offer you can refuse. Read full review
25

Slant Magazine | Andrew Schenker
The film speeds ahead with almost gleeful disinterest in dealing with the narrative challenges it sets up before resolving them in the most perfunctory ways imaginable. Read full review
25

Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert
A film is a terrible thing to waste. For Roman Coppola to waste one on A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is a sad sight to behold. I'll go further. For Charlie Sheen to waste a role in it is also a great pity. I stop not: For Bill Murray to occupy his time in this dreck sandwich is a calamity. Read full review
25

San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle
That was probably writer-director Roman Coppola's main responsibility in "Charles Swan," to give the audience a character worth watching. Get that right, and everything else falls into place. Get that wrong, and the audience finds out just how long 84 minutes can be. The answer: really long. Read full review
20

New York Daily News | Joe Neumaier
Swan is so eager to be a trippy comic lark that it ends up resembling a clown trying to fit through a pea-shooter. Read full review

Metacritic link View more reviews for A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III on Metacritic

Information for Parents

Common Sense Media says not for kids Sheen's '70s-set comedy is a jumbled, sex-filled mess.

What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is a trippy, '70s-set comedy that takes place mostly in the mind of a narcissistic womanizer (played by none other than Charlie Sheen). As you might expect from a movie starring Sheen, there's a great deal of substance abuse (drinking, pill popping, etc.), casual sex, objectification of women (partial nudity included), and strong language (many uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," and more).

Families can talk about the way that sexual relationships are depicted in A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. Is Charles' history with women positive? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.
Do you think the movie would have been better or worse with a different actor playing the main character? Is it funny to see Sheen play someone with personality traits that have been associated with him?
How does the movie portray the 1970s? How would you compare the depiction of the decade with other movies set in that time period?
Charles Swann is also the name of the titular character in Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. Are you familiar with the book? If you are, what are the similarities between Charles Swann III and Proust's Swann?

The good stuff

Positive messages: Charles' life seems like a cautionary tale for young men, so the positive spin would be that being a materialistic, selfish womanizer doesn't lead to a fulfilling life.
Positive role models: This isn't a film with any positive role models, but at least Charles' sister seems attentive enough to visit him in the hospital. Despite his many flaws, Charles has a good friend in Kirby.

What to watch for

Violence: Charles ends up in the hospital, is nearly blown up by a group of imaginary angry women warriors, drinks and drives, and crashes into a pool and injures himself. A beloved pet parrot dies.
Sexy stuff: The majority of Charles' mind is revealed to be made up of sex: half-naked women (breasts are shown), memories of sexual experiences, etc. Charles keeps a drawer full of lurid photos of previous girlfriends/conquests. Charles and his girlfriend are shown in a tub together (breasts visible), and there are several glimpses of sex (either the sounds of or brief scenes of the act). Women are dressed in sexy, revealing outfits in some of Charles' reveries.
Language: Frequent use of strong language, including "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "bitch," "bulls--t," "ass," "damn," "c--k," and more.
Consumerism: Charles drives a Cadillac.
Drinking, drugs and smoking: Charles drinks heavily, pops pills, smoke dope, and goes to drug-fueled parties.

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