71
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranThe Farewell Party succeeds as well as it does because the core dilemma always feels real and the filmmakers take great care to see that the inevitable emotions put into play are never overdone.
- 90Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaArizona RepublicRandy CordovaIt actually is quite funny. It is also warm and empathetic, though a viewer's reaction to the film might vary depending how they view the subject of assisted suicide.
- 88RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonRogerEbert.comOdie HendersonThere’s an infectious joy to how the actors handle the morbid humor here, and it is never mean-spirited.
- 75Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianSlant MagazineElise NakhnikianA neatly balanced tragicomedy about the easily blurred line between assisted living and assisted death.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThe performers, working in Hebrew (with English subtitles), make their characters empathetic, emphatic, human and humane.
- 70The DissolveAndrew LapinThe DissolveAndrew LapinThe film’s deft, improbable balance of tone makes its success feel well-deserved. Not many directors could have pulled off the blend of somber reflection and gallows humor that Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon manage here.
- 70Village VoiceAbby GarnettVillage VoiceAbby Garnett[Depicts] the end of life not as an isolated horror (as in Michael Haneke's Amour) or as the contested site of legal and political factions, but as a complex social phase, its wobbly moral scale hinging on empathy.
- 63Washington PostStephanie MerryWashington PostStephanie MerryDespite its missteps, The Farewell Party feels special in the way it covers the Big Stuff — love, death, friendship, family — without losing its playful streak.
- 60The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenFor all its sensitivity to the subject, The Farewell Party makes a number of tonal missteps of which the most glaring is the insertion of a musical number that upsets the movie’s otherwise sensible balance between the comedic and the morbid.
- The Farewell Party leaves no doubt as to where it stands on the right to die with dignity when facing terminal illness, but it’s so clumsily made that it serves only to exasperate.