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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 54 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

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

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    There is a wise and understanding teacher on the faculty, played by Anjelica Huston. Defending the work of Dead White Males, she sensibly observes that when they did their best work "they weren't dead yet." Read full review

  • 70
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times | Carina Chocano

    If a more elegant and succinct explanation of what compels some people to go to art school has ever been filmed, I haven't seen it. Read full review

  • 63
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Carrie Rickey

    As the film devolved from satire to slapstick horror, I didn't believe in it at all. But in his beetle-browed intensity and tremulousness, I completely believed in Minghella's Jerome. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter |

    With an "Animal House"-ish deportment, Art School likely will entertain a sophomoric audience and etch some winning college-kid figures, but art house audiences will be disappointed by its paint-by-numbers storytelling. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety | David Rooney

    Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb." Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Ruthe Stein

    Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But the film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother. Read full review

  • 40
    The New York Times | Dana Stevens

    In spite of some acute observations and a few interesting performances (most notably from John Malkovich as Jerome's drawing teacher and the ever-reliable Jim Broadbent as Strathmore's least illustrious alumnus), Art School Confidential is a dull and dyspeptic exercise in self-pity and hostility. Read full review

  • 38
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    Zwigoff's overdue for a turkey, in other words. Art School Confidential is it. Read full review

  • 33
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Insistently sullen, nihilistic, and successful to the point of smugness at transmitting buzzkill, Art School Confidential is the second collaboration between art-house cartoonist Daniel Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff. Read full review

View more reviews for Art School Confidential on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Cynical and raunchy comedy for adults only.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that the extensive swearing and raunchy discussion of sex make this a film for adults only. Plus, a serial killer is stalking the school and everyone smokes and drinks heavily. Parents should also know that women are treated as virginal, crazy, or pieces of meat in this film, so if girls do watch it, parents might want to discuss the portrayal of women afterwards.
  • Families can talk about whether the film's cynical premise -- that the only way to be successful is to lie or be an untalented hack -- rings true. What do you do when jealousy or ambition get the best of you? Families can also discuss the raunchy treatment of sex in general and women in particular in this film. Why are films with such a raunchy approach to sex appealing? How do these portrayals of relationships compare to what you see in real life?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: This dark comedy revels in its anti-happy ending: that to get anywhere in the art business -- and to get the girl -- you have to go to jail for something you didn't do.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: A serial killer is stalking the school, though the one murder depicted is shown in an over-the-top comic way that's not frightening. When a student is arrested, a cop warns about future rapes by inmates. One character dies in a fire off-screen.
  • sex false3 Sex: A lot of raunchy discussions of sex, though no actual sex happens. A father looks up the skirt of another young girl. A man poses naked in a live drawing class, and his penis is plainly visible. Audrey poses nude for the same class. When Jerome says he just had a date with his perfect girl, his roommate asks to smell his fingers. There's one lesbian kiss.
  • language false5 Language: Extensive swearing by everyone in the film, including "s--t," "f--k," "p---y," "faggot," "c--ksucker," "c--t," and "a--hole."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Jerome is a chain-smoker by the end of the film. Audrey also smokes. Jimmy is an alcoholic, and Jerome and Jimmy drink together often.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

3.5

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… insanely entertaining … Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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