Reviews - Edtv (1999)

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Taglines: Fame. Be careful. It's out there.

Writers: Émile Gaudreault, Sylvie Bouchard, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, ...

Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Sally Kirkland, ...

A comedy about a video store clerk Ed whose life is thrown into chaos when he agrees to let an executive of a television studio film him for 24 hours.

75 | Mick LaSalle

The results are comical and unexpected -- and just a bit eerie.

75

Artful it's not. But it's awfully affable. [26 March 1999, Life, p.9E]

75 | Rick Groen

EDtv is precisely the kind of brisk, straightforward, amiable and accessible material that shows Howard’s skills to advantage.

70 | Stanley Kauffmann

The screenplay, by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a French film, has enough sharp gags and plot twists to sustain it, with an ending that manages to be nice.

70 | David Ansen

Ron Howard's version is--no surprise--a funny, audience-friendly entertainment that's ultimately less scathing satire than conventional Hollywood romantic comedy outfitted in trendy new clothes.

70 | Elvis Mitchell

With down-to-earth comic instincts, it simply invests its story with a loud ring of truth.

67 | Owen Gleiberman

The fact that Ed's life has been channeled into entertainment never achieves much tension or comic zest. That's because Howard thinks in cookie-cutter ''situations'' to begin with.

63 | James Berardinelli

No one will ever confuse Ron Howard with Robert Altman. So, instead of a potentially hilarious satire, we're left with, as one character in the film puts it, "a joyous celebration of boobery."

63 | Roger Ebert

I enjoyed a lot of the movie in a relaxed sort of fashion; it's not essential or original in the way "The Truman Show'' was, and it hasn't done any really hard thinking about the ways we interact with TV.

60 | Rita Kempley

Howard's film, like McConaughey's performance, is unassuming, ingratiating and a little rough around the edges.

60 | Kenneth Turan

Like the television medium it genially satirizes, EDtv is a grab bag that's both amusing and frustrating.

50 | Andrew O'Hehir

Bleach out the colors, backdate the wardrobes, insert Gary Cooper and Rosalind Russell and you've got one of Frank Capra's lesser films.

50 | Marc Savlov

Neither a revelation nor a total wash, EDtv is instead solid comic filmmaking. I just can't help but think it could have been so much more.

50 | Wesley Morris

The laserdisc of media movies - it plays fine, but it's clunky and cumbersome.

50 | Anthony Miele

It's the outstanding performance from Martin Landau that really seems to hold your interest, as well as hold the film together.

50 | Sandra Contreras

Like its star, Howard's movie is affable, but has limited range.

50 | David Sterritt

Its screenplay veers in highly questionable directions before reaching a mean-spirited climax that outweighs Ron Howard's workmanlike filmmaking and the contributions of a star-powered cast.

40 | David Edelstein

Howard and his writers are so in love with their own hip self-consciousness that it's a wonder they don't feature film critics discussing their movie.

40 | Todd McCarthy

A certain staleness hangs over the proceedings despite the best efforts of the cast and the fun-minded creative team.

40 | Desson Thomson

The movie's too slick and obvious about its intentions.

40 | Amy Taubin

It's a lot of plot but none of it is particularly funny or compelling. What keeps the film chugging along and also gives it a depressive aftertaste is a middle-aged male sexual anxiety subtext that intermittently sputters to the surface.

38 | Peter Travers

Satire in a blanket of bland.

30 | Peter Rainer

I've never been sold on this anti-TV thesis. It's snooty. It assumes we in the audience have seen the light denied the lower orders. Invariably, the people in these movies who are rendered blotto by the tube are dingbat common folk. EDtv takes this notion to a new low.