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Movie Review | 'A Good Year'

Stopping to Smell the Vintner’s Bouquet

By Stephen Holden

• Nov. 10, 2006

“A Good Year,” an innocuous, feel-good movie that reunites Russell Crowe with the director Ridley Scott, is a far cry from the triumphant metallic stomp of “Gladiator,” their previous collaboration. A sun-dappled romantic diversion, which one British critic has already dismissed as “tourist gastro-porn,” “A Good Year” is a three-P movie: pleasant, pretty and predictable. One might add piddling.

If nothing else, this celebration of French food and wine, adapted from Peter Mayle’s 2004 novel, will whet an appetite for consuming “the nectar that is incapable of lying,” as the film’s dissipated philosopher of epicurean delights calls the product of his estate in Provence. Viewers are advised to make a reservation at an upscale French restaurant immediately after seeing the film or risk going home feeling deprived.

For Mr. Crowe, whose public image took a hit last year when he threw a telephone at a desk clerk in a New York hotel and later pleaded guilty to assault, “A Good Year” looks like a calculated charm offensive by an actor not known for his courtly manners. His character, Max Skinner, a ferociously aggressive London bond trader who inherits a small vineyard from his Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) and quickly mellows into a rich, happy, bon vivant, is the sort of role usually taken by Hugh Grant.

Mr. Crowe, estimable actor that he is, gives what may be his cheeriest screen performance. But is he charming? Let’s just say that both Grants (Hugh and the ghost of Cary) can rest comfortably. Mr. Crowe is not unlikable. But as for visceral charm, there are only flashes here and there.

For Mr. Scott “A Good Year” is one of his periodic palate cleansers. Amid his outpouring of would-be blockbusters — “Gladiator,” “Hannibal,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Kingdom of Heaven” — all released since 2000, only one other film, “Matchstick Men,” qualifies as a breather from a schedule that suggests the directorial equivalent of training for a heavyweight bout.

The blandness of “A Good Year” isn’t the fault of Mr. Scott, who pumps the film full of visual energy and gorgeous scenery, but of its screenwriter, Marc Klein (“Serendipity”). You keep waiting for some witty banter, but except for scattered remarks and Max’s slapstick tumble into an empty swimming pool, there isn’t much comedy.

The inevitable romance, when it arrives in the person of a French bistro owner, Fanny (Marion Cotillard), whom he covets at first sight, is a half-baked affair in which her chilly resistance thaws faster than ice cream in a microwave.

The movie begins, in its own coy language, “a few vintages ago” with a scene of Max as a boy (Freddie Highmore) frolicking on the estate of his snobbish, bibulous uncle. As this old man dispenses sartorial advice to his nephew, the cocky wunderkind beats him at chess. The story then shoots ahead “many vintages later” to catch the grown-up Max, now a preening Master of the Universe, as he spits fire in his London brokerage house and leads his “lab rats,” as he calls his troops, in an unscrupulous maneuver that nets his company tens of millions of dollars.

Word arrives that Max’s once-beloved Uncle Henry, with whom he lost touch years earlier, has died, leaving no will. As his uncle’s closest surviving relative, Max stands to inherit the estate, La Siroque, which he visits, determined to make a quick sale based on the advice of his best friend, Charlie Willis (Tom Hollander), a London real-estate agent. But once he arrives in France where the sun is brighter, the grapes tastier and the women more pliable, ooh la la! Before the property can be sold, it needs repairs, especially the tennis court, and he lingers there and begins to rediscover the simple pleasures of those halcyon childhood summers.

But even in paradise Max is prickly and insensitive. He repeatedly tramples on the feelings of his uncle’s winemaker (Didier Bourdon) and shouts “Lance Armstrong!” while driving past a group of French cyclists. Nice guy.

Out of the blue a young woman from California, Christie Roberts (Abbie Cornish), shows up and announces she is Uncle Henry’s illegitimate daughter. If her claim is true, she, not Max, would get La Siroque, whose value suddenly diminishes after a wine-growing expert tests the vines and pronounces restoration of the vineyard to its former glory impossible.

With two pretty women lurking around the premises, you might expect a rivalry to develop, but the movie barely considers the possibility. Failing that, you might expect Max and Christie to wage a cutthroat battle for ownership of the estate. But Christie, an oenophile from Napa Valley, is primarily interested in knowing more about her father. Ms. Cornish (the young Australian actress who was so gripping in “Somersault”) exudes a palpable discomfort in her confusing, underwritten role.

“A Good Year” is the movie equivalent of poring over a glossy brochure for a luxury vacation you could never afford while a roughneck salesman (Mr. Crowe) who imagines he has class harangues you to hurry up and make a decision about taking the tour. My advice is to resist the pitch.

The movie is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some strong language and one mild sex scene.

A GOOD YEAR

Opens today nationwide.

Directed by Ridley Scott; written by Marc Klein, based on the novel by Peter Mayle; director of photography, Philippe Le Sourd; edited by Dody Dorn; music by Marc Streitenfeld; production designer, Sonja Klaus; produced by Mr. Scott; released by Fox 2000 Pictures. Running time: 117 minutes.

WITH: Russell Crowe (Max Skinner), Albert Finney (Uncle Henry), Marion Cotillard (Fanny), Abbie Cornish (Christie Roberts), Tom Hollander (Charlie Willis), Freddie Highmore (Young Max) and Didier Bourdon (Francis Duflot).

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A Good Year Reviews

It's a film from which you'd expect the moon, the stars and the sun. What with an actor like Crowe and a director like Scott. Disappointingly, the talented duo gives you the most wishy-washy film of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 23, 2019

It's not so much A Good Year as A Good Yawn (if not A Full-on Nap).

Full Review | Aug 22, 2018

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 9, 2011

Predictable but pleasant movie for teens and up.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2011

Russell Crowe brings to bear his now-familiar acting tics in a not-so-tender romance by director Ridley Scott.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Apr 24, 2009

[Russel Crowe's] supply of quips and pratfalls is inexhaustible, even when he's trapped at the bottom of a swimming pool surrounded by peat and dry leaves. Alas, he escapes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 8, 2008

Under the Tuscan Sun for men

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 22, 2007

Forget that this is a film about a man's epiphany about what's important in life, and enjoy it for its lighthearted moments, slapstick comedy, but most of all its divine locations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Crowe has located his funnybone again in a conventional but engaging romantic comedy ...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 7, 2006

This Gallic tourist-porn feels as stale as yesterday's baguette.

Full Review | Dec 1, 2006

'Look Homeward, Gladiator' hints at new dimensions of warmth and heart in Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott. They're not there yet, but they're headed in the right direction.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 24, 2006

A Good Year is, structurally, nothing more than a rickety assembly of the creakiest cinematic clichés.

Full Review | Nov 20, 2006

It's so goddamned cute you almost want to puke, but you don't. This is the most charming movie of the year, and it comes within an inch of being too sweet to stand, but it doesn't get there.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2006

Does not translate into a good film.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Nov 16, 2006

The course A Good Year takes feels like it's on rails: there's only one possible destination and only one way to get there.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 15, 2006

Scott's film is like a reproduction of things he's seen in romantic comedies over the years with no idea why they're there.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 15, 2006

Alternately, you could do your laundry, which would be just as exciting and possibly more dramatic.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Nov 15, 2006

A leaden attempt at an upbeat romp from the downcast, feel-bad tag team of actor Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott, the movie is like hearing a knock-knock joke told by a mortician.

Full Review | Nov 14, 2006

They [director Ridley Scott and star Russell Crowe] may have had a good time making the film, but I can't say I did while watching it.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Nov 14, 2006

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A good year, common sense media reviewers.

Predictable but pleasant movie for teens and up.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Max is greedy and selfish and will walk over anyon

Crazy driving while talking on a cell phone. Max f

Romance and flirting between characters, sexual ba

Pretty mild: "Hell," "ass," "bullocks."

Sanyo; Max relies heavily on his Treo.

Wine, drinking, and getting drunk figure prominent

Parents need to know that main character Max is selfish and greedy and doesn't care who he hurts to get ahead. His whole life is about making money, and he revels in the fact that he's good at it, even though people hate him. Wine and drinking figure prominently in the storyline, and the romance between two characters…

Positive Messages

Max is greedy and selfish and will walk over anyone to get ahead. People hate him, and he relishes it.

Violence & Scariness

Crazy driving while talking on a cell phone. Max falls into an empty pool and can't get out. Fanny floods it with water while he's in there.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Romance and flirting between characters, sexual banter, bedroom scene, female characters in tight dresses with cleavage.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Wine, drinking, and getting drunk figure prominently in the storyline.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that main character Max is selfish and greedy and doesn't care who he hurts to get ahead. His whole life is about making money, and he revels in the fact that he's good at it, even though people hate him. Wine and drinking figure prominently in the storyline, and the romance between two characters gets a little steamy (they flirt, tear each other's clothes off, and end up in bed), but it's nothing teens haven't seen before. That said, most teens probably won't be too interested in this one, since it focuses on more mid-life issues. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (4)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Beautifully made, well casted, excellent plot

Beautiful scenery, predictable plot., what's the story.

Max Skinner ( Russell Crowe ) is a rich, selfish, high-powered London stock trader. He's not interested in slowing down -- until his Uncle Henry ( Albert Finney ) dies and leaves him a beautiful country chateau and vineyard in France. Max spent many happy summers there as a child, learning about life and winemaking from his wise uncle. Max hasn't been there in 10 years, but now he's forced to take time off from work to handle his uncle's estate. He plans to quickly sell the chateau and return home. But Max misses his plane and gets stuck in France, dealing with all those pesky, warm memories. Before long, he starts to soften, but he's pulled in both directions. He enjoys re-living childhood memories, but he's not quite ready to give up his luxurious London life. Complicating things are feisty Fanny (Marion Cotillard) and Henry's illegitimate daughter, Kristy (Abbie Cornish), both of whom have Max thinking about his future.

Is It Any Good?

We've seen this passable movie before in various incarnations -- most notably Under the Tuscan Sun , with Diane Lane in the Russell Crowe part, discovering herself in the Italian countryside. Consequently, there are no surprises here. We know what's going to happen, and we know pretty much how it's going to happen.

That said, A Good Year is a nice production (with beautiful, sun-washed landscapes) by Ridley Scott , a great director who makes audiences care about his characters, even if everyone does know how things are going to turn out. Crowe does the bad-boy-turned-good role well, and manages to keep the pace moving along fairly well. All in all, this movie is a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours if you're not looking for anything earth-shattering.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what's important in life: money or family? Max has lived his life solely for himself and his own gain -- how has that affected his quality of life? How can people balance earning a good living with having time for friends and family? Is it possible to do both? What kinds of sacrifices are needed? What does Max learn in the course of the movie?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 10, 2006
• On DVD or streaming : February 27, 2007
• Cast : Albert Finney , Marion Cotillard , Russell Crowe
• Director : Ridley Scott
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 118 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : language and some sexual content.
• Last updated : January 19, 2024

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• DVD & Streaming

A Good Year

• Comedy , Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Russell Crowe as Max Skinner; Albert Finney as Uncle Henry; Freddie Highmore as Young Max; Marion Cotillard as Fanny Chenal; Abbie Cornish as Christie Roberts

Home Release Date

• Ridley Scott

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

Ethically challenged business gladiator Max Skinner is enjoying the London high life. After all, he’s just led his company’s team of bond traders through a masterful—and legally questionable—financial maneuver that nets his firm millions of dollars. His real friends are few, but he luxuriates in the jealousy of this rivals and the adoration of his underlings. Then he learns that his Uncle Henry, his only living relative, has died at the French chateau and winery where he’s lived for 30 years.

In a series of halcyon flashbacks, we watch a 12-or-so-year-old version of Max spending time with Uncle Henry at the chateau during long visits after the death of Max’s parents. Though he drifted away from the warm and worldly Henry over the years in his quest for financial domination, Max remembers his times at the small winery as the best of his life. Returning now, however, to claim the estate, Max announces his plans to sell the charming place, especially when he realizes the quality of the wine has devolved to the level of vinegar.

At first unmoved by the objections of vine-tender Francis Duflot and his gregarious wife/housekeeper Ludivine—the couple who also cared for the place when Max was a boy—Max speeds his efforts to unload the property when a young woman from America shows up claiming to be Henry’s illegitimate daughter (and possible legal heir). But then Max’s fond memories of his quotable, “good life”-loving Uncle Henry and his newfound affection for a local beauty slowly begin to erode his resolve to leave the Provencal lifestyle behind.

Positive Elements

The film reveals Max’s tendency to cheat his way to success as both unethical and ultimately unsatisfying (though he experiences few actual negative consequences). We learn that Uncle Henry became disappointed in Max’s fixation on making money and winning at all costs. In a flashback, Henry encourages young Max to celebrate his failures as a source of wisdom and to learn to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Max eventually sees the value in that advice.

Sexual Content

Part of Max’s big-city lifestyle includes bedding beautiful women. And he questions whether it would be wrong to have sex with Christie, 19, his newfound cousin. A nude woman is very briefly glimpsed in a porn magazine. And many of the film’s females bare cleavage.

When Christie wears a small bikini by the pool and gets a bad sunburn, she allows Max’s eager best friend, Charlie, to treat her by applying ice to her bare back. The camera follows his gaze under her towel as the top of her rear is seen.

At a dinner party, a crude joke is made about sodomy. Max is attracted to local girl Fanny, who lifts her skirt in public to show him a large bruise on her hip and backside. Upon seeing this display, male bystanders applaud. Max and Fanny end up going to bed together. (They partially undress each other.)

Violent Content

In search of comedy, A Good Year includes plenty of pratfalls, mishaps and accidents as Max falls over, through and down various props and bits of landscape. In his car he unknowingly runs a woman on a bicycle off the road while fumbling with his phone. He also falls into a swimming pool, empty expect for manure, and is pummeled by jets of water unleashed to fill it up.

Crude or Profane Language

In addition to a few misuses of the names “Jesus,” “Christ” and “God,” the f-word is heard at least once and the s-word is exclaimed better than a dozen times. The British profanities “bloody,” “b-gger,” “w-nker,” “s-d” and “b-llocks” are heard, as is the sexual euphemism “shag.” “B–tard” and “a–” are also casually tossed around.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Most of the story unfolds at a French winery, and all of the characters drink. In flashbacks, Uncle Henry is seen drinking lots of wine and is known to get drunk. He schools young Max in the ways of winemaking and gives him wine to drink (though he waters it down a little). Older Max regularly drinks harder stuff. At a dinner party, several of the attendees get drunk, including one who can’t quite walk home. Pipes and cigars make appearances.

Other Negative Elements

Max, young and old, is a liar and a cheat. As mentioned in “Positive Elements,” that’s mostly cast in a negative light. However, he is seemingly rewarded for his biggest ethical compromise. And even when he chooses to do something noble for his cousin, he needlessly uses deception to accomplish it.

While watching A Good Year , I was reminded just how skillful director Ridley Scott is at crafting heart-pounding action/adventure tales and how adept star Russell Crowe is at creating unforgettably intense and complicated characters. By their bodies of work (which include Kingdom of Heaven, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, and Hannibal ), neither strikes you as the kind of a guy who enjoys a lightweight, heartfelt, slapstick-infused romantic comedy. And judging from this effort, they’re not the kind of guys who can make a very good one.

At every moment, you can feel them laboring to create a breezy atmosphere to match the languid beauty of their Provence backdrop. But they just don’t seem to have it in them. Crowe, especially, can’t convincingly dim that famous intensity. His attempts at being a charming, clumsy rascal feel like those of a workaholic dad spending a day off with the kids. Yeah, he’s here goofing around with us, but you can tell his heart is still back at the office emoting about something dark and weighty.

It’s not just Crowe. The storyline is as predictable as a commuter flight on a clear night; you can see that landing strip coming for miles and miles. Moments of dialogue meant to convey profound meaning clunk so loudly I worried folks in the theater next door would be distracted from their film. Then I wondered what they were watching. Then I wanted to go and see.

Thus, I began pondering what A Good Year might have looked like as a straightforward drama about a man forced to reevaluate all his morality-free, self-serving instincts and the life of singular isolation they’ve yielded for him. Throw in one pivotal, rain-soaked action scene, and that’s a movie the Scott/Crowe team could make compelling.

Instead, for the sake of lightheartedness, they lower the stakes to the point where it’s tough to care what choices Crowe’s character makes. The isolated, achievement-driven London high life or the more relational, sensual French country life? Either way, it’s all about what will make Max most happy. Neither choice requires real sacrifice. And that’s the story’s biggest problem. It wants us to see the good life as the one spent soaking up pleasure and community and beauty. Better, maybe, but in the end just a different brand of hedonism apart from selfless service of others.

Will Max ever go searching for deeper meaning outside of himself or will he just repeat his Uncle Henry’s equally empty (though more attractive) life of wine, women and song? Maybe Crowe and Scott can answer that question in an action/adventure sequel.

Christopher Lyon

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A Good Year Review

27 Oct 2006

NaN minutes

A Good Year

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe must love the fact that their first collaboration since Gladiator couldn’t be less similar to the sword ’n’ sandal epic that revived the former’s A-list career and launched the latter’s. “They didn’t expect us to do this ,” you can almost hear them chortling. Well, there are some similarities: in both films, Russell Crowe owns a vineyard, in both he’s called Max (sort of) and, uh, that’s it. A Good Year is an entirely different bottle of plonk: rosé rather than claret, if you want to stretch a metaphor.

But while it’s all well and good to see them together again, the material doesn’t prove a fit for either. Crowe’s not attempted comedy since the disastrous Mystery, Alaska and Scott’s only previous tussle with the genre was the uneven Matchstick Men (unless you count Hannibal). The problem’s not so much that A Good Year is a comedy per se; rather that it’s one of those very gentle, breezy little comedies — you know, the kind your mum likes to watch after the Sunday roast — which require a light touch, a feel for the flippant and, ideally, an undercurrent of self-knowing absurdity to make them truly appealing. None of this is evident in either Crowe’s performance or Scott’s direction. There’s a forced jauntiness, a sense of careful calculation whizzing away behind the comedy beats, from Crowe’s intense pratfalls as Max tries to escape a derelict swimming pool, to his plummy exclamations of “bollocks” at every available opportunity.

Quite simply, Crowe and Scott are just too heavyweight. There is some novelty value in seeing Crowe squeezing his burly frame into the kind of role usually reserved for Hugh Grant or Colin Firth, but it soon wears off. The film does at least look great — who better than Scott to shoot the dusty villages and sun-snogged vistas of Bouche-du-Rhône? — and works best in its more sombre moments, as Max’s deeply buried, Freddie Highmore-shaped soul is exhumed via a series of oddly-timed flashbacks.

That A Good Year’s attempts at humour fall flat is also the fault of the script: there’s not a single good gag in here. Max’s smarmy quips, his rosbif-versus-frog sparring with shifty vintner Roussel (Didier Bourdon), the daffy maid who’s forever a breath away from squealing, “Ooh la la!”… It’s all rather flimsy, obvious stuff — these are cultural references that you need to blow the dust off. If you want a decent midlife-crisis wine comedy, stick with Sideways.

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• International edition
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Rusty and Ridley’s romcom: A Good Year shows Russell Crowe at his most charming

When Ridley Scott’s sumptuous film came out in 2006, it seemed to baffle some audiences. But with Crowe, Albert Finney and Marion Cotillard, what’s not to love?

• A Good Year is streaming on Disney+. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
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L ike wine, some movies need time to be appreciated. When it was released back in 2006, A Good Year suffered a little with critics and audiences, perhaps due to misplaced expectations. Its director Ridley Scott and star Russell Crowe had previously collaborated on the rousingly popular epic Gladiator, and some were expecting more blokey, muscular entertainment. Instead, what we got was a light, romantically tinged comedy-drama based on a novel about an English banker who reevaluates his life after inheriting his uncle’s French vineyard.

Max (played by Crowe) lives the fast life in London’s financial world, issuing trades with the cockiness of a gambler on a hot streak. He receives word that his uncle Henry (Albert Finney) has died, leaving him his sizeable estate in Provence where Max spent his childhood summers. Though filled with fond memories of Henry and his chateau, Max had long been out of touch – “probably because I’ve become an asshole” – he sighs to his assistant Gemma (Archie Panjabi) – and ventures out to the estate with the idea of selling it.

There he meets some obstacles: the property is decaying, the longtime overseers of Henry’s estate are unhappy at the prospective sale and an unexpected American visitor, Christie (Abbie Cornish) arrives, claiming to be Henry’s long-lost daughter, which could threaten Max’s claim to the estate. Also on the scene is Fanny, a no-nonsense local played irresistibly by Marion Cotillard.

A Good Year initially struggles to find its footing. Some early comic bits don’t quite land as Scott tries to play things with a light touch, contrary to some of his more ruggedly serious output; we’re not used to seeing Crowe channelling Cary Grant. But the film soon settles into a comfortable groove and becomes very entertaining – and beautiful, with southern France captured sumptuously by Scott and cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd’s painterly imagery.

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The film veers back and forth between flashbacks to Max’s childhood, spent running around the chateau and learning bits of wisdom from Uncle Henry, played with effortless charisma by the late Finney, who elevated everything he appeared in. His spirit is a shadow over the present day; Max wistfully remembering the past while enjoying the estate’s wines and Henry’s colourful wardrobe. Max puts a price on everything, which causes a rift with some of the French locals. “This place doesn’t suit my life,” Max says. “No, it is your life that doesn’t suit this place,” replies Fanny.

Crowe does some of his most charismatic work in A Good Year, which serves as a demonstration of his range after Gladiator; he can do comedy, he can be a romantic hero. The film is also packed with other fine performances, including Freddie Highmore as the young Max, Tom Hollander as Max’s very expensive real estate broker and Didier Bourdon and Isabelle Candelier, who entertain as the caretakers of Henry’s home. And of course Cotillard, who is among the most captivating actors in modern cinema.

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Scott has taken on more ambitious subjects of greater scope and weight than this, but A Good Year may be one of his most easily enjoyable and emotionally satisfying efforts, in a long career that has traversed so many times and places, in this world and others. He and Crowe have made five films together, but not since 2010. Hopefully, as rumours have periodically suggested, a sixth collaboration is in the works. For now, we have A Good Year.

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A GOOD YEAR

"vintage romance".

What You Need To Know:

(RoRo, B, LLL, V, S, NN, AA, D, M) Strong romantic worldview about following your heart and foregoing greedy materialism, but mixed with some moral elements about doing the right thing, including the aforementioned idea about foregoing a greedy form of materialism, especially if you have to cheat to win; 33 obscenities (including one or two muffled "f" words), two strong profanities, two light profanities, and obscene gesture in two or three scenes; light comic violence, such as man falls into dirty emptied swimming pool, man tries to climb and jump out of dirty pool, woman falls off bicycle when car almost runs her over, and tennis players accidentally run into fences and walls; passionate kissing as couple tears off clothes, implied fornication, talk about deceased man being a lothario and being with other women, and man stares briefly at young woman's naked rear end as he helps her with a terrible sunburn; brief rear female nudity when man helps young woman with intense sunburn, some female cleavage and upper male nudity; alcohol use, uncle gives nephew watered down wine and man gets a little drunk at a dinner; smoking; and, cheating rebuked, forgery used to solve the plot problem, lying, and apparent bribery.

More Detail:

A GOOD YEAR is a breezy, enchanting romantic comedy, but it is not as morally uplifting as it could have been.

The movie stars Russell Crowe, who plays Max Skinner, a high-powered, competitive stockbroker in London who’s not above cheating in order to help his firm and himself. The story opens with Max as a young orphaned boy at his Uncle Henry’s chateau and vineyard in France. Max and his uncle are playing chess, but Max cheats in order to win. Henry tells Max a story about how a glass of wine always tells the truth about its quality, implying that it’s better to tell the truth, but little Max refuses to come clean about his cheating.

Cut to the present where Max and his team of “lab rats” (as he calls the stockbrokers under him) use shady means to manipulate the price of some bonds. That same day, he learns that news of his uncle’s death has been delayed a month. His uncle left no will, so Max and his lawyer, Charles, believe they can make a killing selling the chateau and vineyard.

Duflot, the manager of the vineyard, is not happy about Max wanting to sell the place. A comical run-in with Fanny, a pretty café owner in the village, delays Max from getting back to London. He decides to spend a few more days in the French countryside working to fix up the chateau.

Max pursues Fanny and savors fond memories of the summers spent with his Uncle Henry. A wrinkle is put into his plans to sell the chateau when Henry’s illegitimate daughter from America, Christie, appears wanting to know more about her long-lost father.

A GOOD YEAR is an appealing, lighthearted movie with an appealing cast led by Australian Russell Crowe as Max. It will make viewers excited about visiting the French countryside. A subplot about boutique French wines is confusing, however.

Although the movie has some positive moral elements where Max learns to be a better person, the dominant worldview is Romantic. Thus, in the story, Max also learns how to follow his dreams, which include settling down with Fanny. Also, as he decides that Fanny is the one he loves, Max and Fanny have a bedroom scene that cuts away to the next morning. Thus, while the movie extols virtues like telling the truth and denigrates cheating to win, the worldview context is a Romantic one where premarital sex is okay. In the end, Max realizes that he should follow his heart, not his pocketbook, and his heart belongs in France with Fanny.

In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus Christ says that premarital sex is wrong and requires repentance. Thus, Jesus extols chastity and marriage. A GOOD YEAR could have done without the implied sex scene between Max and Fanny. In that light, this movie belongs to the Elizabethan and Shakespearean genre known as pastoral romance. In this genre, the lovers always get married at the end. That may not be “as you like it,” or as today’s filmmakers like it, but it is how God likes it.

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A Good Year review

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You know the feeling: you’ve been working 24/7, you’re stressed out, haven’t got a second to breathe, let alone sniff the effing roses. It’s time for a change. It’s time for a vacation. Ridley Scott knows that feeling too – and whimsical wine-quaffing comedy A Good Year is his busman’s holiday: a little movie made by a big director. The click you hear at the start of A Good Year is Scott’s ego switching off (or, more likely, just going into standby) for the next 118 minutes.

’Course, size is relative, and most struggling filmmakers would kill to have resources like this ‘little’ movie. Need a vineyard in the south of France? You got it. Need Peter Mayle (author of relocation bestseller A Year in Provence) to adapt his own novel? Can do. Albert Finney pencilled in for a supporting role? No probs. Russell Crowe reteaming with Scott for the first time since he strapped on sandals for Gladiator ? All go.

Cynics will say A Good Year is simply an excuse for Scott and Crowe to kick back and backslap in Provence with a few bottles of plonk. They’re right. But at least the filmmaking buddies did some decent work before reaching for the corkscrew. A Good Year’s the kind of undemanding feelgood flick some critics will sniff at. But for all the self-indulgence on display, there’s also the ever-reliable quality of Crowe. It’s Maximus Decimus Meridius does Working Title.

Sending up his bullish, hotel-clerk-bashing tabloid image, Russ delivers a turn that’s honey-glazed like a prime ham: Square Mile posturing (“Today is greedy bastard day”) morphing into fish-out-of-water floundering as power broker Max arrives in France to flog his dead uncle’s estate. In the chateau, every dusty corner prompts a nostalgia trip in which boho dipso Uncle Henry (Albert Finney, effortless) dispenses lessons in wine and manhood. As Max’s hard-nosed priggishness crumbles, Crowe recreates his on-screen persona, wearing half-mast trousers, grinding his teeth on a dodgy plummy accent and getting dunked in a swimming pool full of cow shit. Love him, hate him – you can’t help but laugh at him; the cock-of-the-walk alpha male turning himself into a plain and simple cock for a quick laugh.

After Kingdom Of Heaven ’s box-office nosedive, it’s easy to see this as Scott’s anti-epic, a gentle comedy destined to become a footnote in his filmography, like Spielberg’s Always or Cameron’s Ghosts Of The Abyss. Future film historians may puzzle over Sir Ridley’s reasons for straying off-piste, but chances are this could be exactly the pick-me-up the über-director needs before bouncing back with his Crowe-starring hat-trick American Gangster. Glug away.

A change of pace for Scott and Crowe, A Good Year uncorks unlikely laughs and a vineyard full of feel-good whimsy. Forgivably forgettable.

The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine. 

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a good year (2006)

A good year.

Oscar-winner Russell Crowe reunites with "Gladiator" director Ridley Scott in A GOOD YEAR, a Fox 2000 Pictures presentation of a Scott Free production. London-based investment expert Max Skinner (Crowe) moves to Provence to sell a small vineyard he has inherited from his late uncle. Max reluctantly settles into what ultimately becomes an intoxicating new chapter in his life, as he comes to realize that life is meant to be savored. A GOOD YEAR is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Peter Mayle. (Mayle and Ridley Scott, who are longtime friends, together came up with the idea for the novel.) Scott produces from a screenplay by Marc Klein. The film also stars the esteemed Albert Finney as Max's late Uncle Henry, who imparts wisdom to his young nephew; Marion Cotillard ("A Very Long Engagement") as a café owner who catches Max's eye; Abbie Cornish ("Sommersault") as Max's supposed long-lost cousin, who may hold the vineyard's title rights; Tom Hollander ("Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest") as his best friend; and Freddie Highmore ("Finding Neverland") as the young Max. Confident and cocky, headstrong and handsome, Max Skinner is a successful London banker who specializes in trading bonds. A financial barracuda on the banks of the Thames, Max devours the competition in his efforts to conquer the European market. His latest conquest has netted a tidy seven-figure profit, much to the chagrin of his Saville Row-draped rivals. Max's triumph is in perfect keeping with his philosophy: winning isn't everything, it's the only thing! Soon thereafter, Max receives word from France alerting him to sad news: his elderly Uncle Henry has passed away. Max, Henry's closest blood relative, is the sole beneficiary of his estate, which includes a Provençal chateau and vineyard, La Siroque, where Henry cultivated grapes for over thirty years. Max travels to the chateau where he spent his boyhood summers vacationing with his eccentric uncle, whom he hasn't seen or written to in years. While Max tends to the legal affairs of his inheritance, he is suspended from his firm, pending an investigation into his questionable bond transaction. With his future in London in flux, Max reluctantly begins settling into life at the chateau. He reunites with the chateau's longtime vigneron, Francis Duflot (still tending the vines after three decades), whom Max remembers from his boyhood visits. Duflot's exuberant wife, Ludivine, the estate's housekeeper, warmly welcomes Max back. Max is uncertain as to whether life in the South of France suits him. He rings up his best friend, London realtor Charlie Willis, to inquire as to what a small chateau and winery like La Siroque would command on the current market. Charlie advises Max that small wineries with a good product can bring several million dollars, as boutique wine, made in small batches, is the rage in wine shops. It's money in the bank for Max should he lose his job. As Max fondly embraces the memories of summers past (spent with a man whose wisdom and philosophy helped Max chart his successful career) while contemplating a cloudy future, a complication arises with the sudden arrival of a determined, twentysomething California girl, Christie Roberts. Christie, a Napa Valley native, claims to be the illegitimate daughter of the deceased uncle. The revelation, if true, makes her Max's cousin and, according to French law, the beneficiary of La Siroque. Suspecting Christie may be a fraud, Max questions her about her past while bickering with her over the fate of the vineyard, whose plonk (as the French define bad wine) rivals the worst vinegar imaginable. Max, who has tasted La Siroque's awful vin de pays, also finds some other bottles in Uncle Henry's cellar bearing the name Le Coin Perdu ('the lost corner'). This mysterious, legendary vin de garage has fetched thousands per bottle on the black market for years, according to the fetching local cafe owner, Fanny Chenal, with whom Max has become smitten. Where does the wine come from, and why is Duflot so insistent on staying at La Siroque whatever the vineyard's fate? And, what about some unusual vines discovered on the property by Christie, which the crusty vintner claims are experimental in nature, and a renowned oenologue has deemed unworthy? Max's memories and the passage of time bring forth emotions and feelings he thought were long lost, and afford him a new appreciation of his late Uncle Henry's philosophy on life - and on life in Provence: "There's nowhere else in the world where one can keep busy doing so little, yet enjoy it so much!"

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THE WEEK IN REVIEW: November 6 - November 12 2006

Recapping the big news of the week - by Brian Gallagher

Russell Crowe Gets Romantic in A Good Year

The actor discusses marriage, working with Ridley Scott, and facing Denzel Washington in next year's American Gangster.

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Marion Cotillard and Tom Hollander Join Ridley Scott's A Good Year

Alongside Russell Crowe in the adaptation of the Peter Mayle novel.

A Good Year (2006): A Romantically Flawed, Predictably Feelgood Film

Film review: a good year (2006).

A Good Year is a British-American dramedy with a good side of romance, produced and directed by Ridley Scott. Russell Crowe stars alongside Albert Finney, Freddie Highmore, Tom Hollander, Abbie Cornish and Marion Cotillard. Indeed, A Good Year has a very good cast.

Set in southern France, in Provence, A Good Year is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Peter Mayle, a neighbour and good friend of the above-mentioned Ridley Scott. Indeed, it was discussions between these two that led to Mayle’s book, which then led to Scott’s film adaptation.

Although billed as a rom-com, A Good Year is truly more of a journey of self-discovery for a man who has lost his way. Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) is a no-holds-barred, sardonic stockbroker who has long forgotten the joyous, little boy he once was. But when forced to return to his childhood haunts in southern France, memories of his boyish self (Freddie Highmore) and the lessons learned from his dearly departed uncle (Albert Finney) begin to surface. Max begins to reevaluate his life and its current trajectory.

When the Boy Becomes the Pirate

There’s a line from the movie Hook , delivered by the always wonderful Dame Maggie Smith, who’s playing the Wendy who grew up, where she looks at the greedy, preoccupied man Peter Pan has become and says, “So, Peter, you’ve become a pirate.” The essence of that line, of childhood innocence lost and grown-up cynicism found, is the essence of A Good Year . The Peter Pan-like joie de vivre of Max Skinner the boy has been replaced with sardonic cynicism and egoism of Max Skinner the man.

The only heir to his estranged uncle’s estate, Max Skinner returns to his uncle’s chateau and vineyard in Provence after many, many years of absence. He’s there to wrap things up as soon as possible, sell the estate, and get back to London and his high-flying career. Max is dashing, arrogant, wickedly witty, superficial in many ways. And yes, he’s an incredibly charming jerk – a real rogue.

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But the quick stay in Provence suddenly gets prolonged, after Max is suspended for some dubious stock market manipulations. And after the stipulations of the will are a bit more complicated than first thought, especially when a young, American woman (Abbie Cornish) suddenly shows up on the chateau doorstep, saying that Uncle Henry is her dad. And after a certain feisty French café owner (Marion Cotillard) catches the eye of one lonely British stockbroker.

Truly, Max is lonely. That is becoming increasingly clear. The cynicism, the sardonic wit, the sleazy charm is all a front. And the longer he stays in his uncle’s home, the more he remembers the dreaming, wondering boy, he once was. The more he begins to regret his estrangement from the only man who ever truly loved him, his dear uncle. And the more he begins to become his uncle.

In one of the film’s running gags, Max has literally no clothes with him when he came for his quick stopover. So, when the stopover gets prolonged, he finds himself having to raid his uncle’s wardrobe. The designer suits are swapped for ill-fitting old man slacks and sweater vests. It’s an enjoyable transformation, which Max takes in good stride and humor.

And yes, it’s all leading up to a man making a decision about his life, what he wants out of it, and what will make him truly happy in the long run. Can the boy and the man reconcile?

Feelgood Redeemable

There’s a lot to recommend A Good Year . It’s beautifully filmed. Southern France has never been lovelier. The acting is first rate and the chemistry between the cast is palpable. There is so much to dislike about Max Skinner, but you find yourself being charmed by him anyhow. And that says something about Russell Crowe’s portrayal. Max is ultimately a redeemable rogue.

A Good Year is a feelgood film that hits many of the predictable and expected and necessary feelgood points. Where it disappoints though is in the romance department. The romance is too pat, too rushed. I mean, she’s in bed with him lickety-split and he’s not that charming. So, there’s a kind of routinized falseness to that aspect of the story. And it’s this romantic failing which probably aided and abetted the movie’s flopping at the box office. It was and is incorrectly categorized and billed as a romantic comedy. It is not a romantic comedy.

But just because the romance isn’t quite there, it does not mean that A Good Year isn’t worth watching, isn’t redeemable. It is. It’s saccharine and predictable and funny. And did I mention I am a total sucker for tales about grown-ups reconnecting with their inner childhood selves? A Good Year may be romantically flawed, but it does redeem itself in the feelgood department.

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Where to Watch: Rent and/or buy on Digital/DVD.

Content Note: Rated PG-13 for language and some sexual content. Swearing in British accents always sounds cute to my ears, but yes, there are more than a few cuss words in the film. Max Skinner is an arrogant cad. There are sexual innuendos. Again, Max Skinner is an arrogant cad. No skin. One brief sex scene, where nothing much is seen.

Have you seen A Good Year ? What are your thoughts on this movie? Let me know in the comments .

Photo Credit: 20 th Century Fox.

OVERALL RATING

“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful

friendship.”

ROMANCE RATING

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a

matter of chance.”

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A lover of words, stories and storytellers since her youth and just plain curious by nature, Jessica embarked on a very long academic journey that took her across a continent (from Canada's west coast to its east) and even to the other side of the globe, where she currently lives an expat existence in Denmark. She now trails many fancy initials behind her name, if she ever cares to use them, and continues to be ever so curious. She's a folklorist, a mother, a wife, a middle child, a small town girl, a beekeeper, an occasional quilter, a jam-maker. She curates museum exhibits, gets involved in many cultural projects for this and that, collects oral histories when she can find the time and continues to love stories in all their many and varied forms. The local librarians all know her by name.

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Netflix’s Latest Thriller Puts a Scandinavian Spin on the Disaster Movie

Sweden has given us a good movie about why you should never visit Sweden.

Having watched their Norwegian neighbors make a decent stab at the Hollywood-style disaster movie with a loosely related trilogy of films about avalanches ( The Wave ), earthquakes ( The Quake ), and oil rig explosions ( The Burning Sea ), Sweden decided to get in on the action themselves last year with The Abyss (or Avgrunden, if you don’t want to get confused with James Cameron’s similarly perilous underwater epic ). And they didn’t have to look far for inspiration, either.

Out now on Netflix six months after being released in Scandinavia, the quasi-blockbuster is set in the real-life Kiruna, the country’s northernmost town, which in 2014 had to slowly start moving three kilometers east due to the threat of mining subsidence. But with the area’s possible structural collapse still decades away, The Abyss is the only chance many of us will get to witness the carnage that may or may not eventually unfold.

This modern-day tale may have sped up the rippling effects of the world’s largest iron ore mine, an apocalyptic development recently covered in the documentary A Brand New World . However, best known for his work within Sweden’s televisual forte – the brooding, rain-soaked, and woolly-jumpered crime dramas known as Nordic noir – director Richard Holm ( The Machinery , Gåsmamman ) is just as interested in the cracks of suburban life. Indeed, apart from the foreshadowing opening scene in which three teenage hikers fatally plummet through the earth, The Abyss’ slow-burning first half plays out more like a family saga.

Portrayed by Tuva Novotny, whose English-language credits include Borg vs McEnroe and Annihilation , workaholic single mom Frigga is juggling her job as the Kiirunavaara mine’s security manager and the rivalry between her new lover Dabir (Kardo Razzazi) and ex-husband Tage (Peter Franzen). Daughter Mika (Felicia Truedsson) and her girlfriend (Tintin Poggatts Sarri) are busy blocking roads in local protests, while son Simon (Edvin Ryding) is rebelling in the wake of his parents’ divorce.

One key player in the serviceable disaster movie/uninvolving family saga.

It’s a move typical of Sweden’s occasional forays into disaster movie territory. Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure and Triangle of Sadness, for example , both centered around, rather than focused on, devastating natural occurrences, and 2018’s The Unthinkable threw elements of surrealism, melodrama, and military conflict into its state of emergency.

Unfortunately, The Abyss doesn’t possess the pitch-black humor of the former: the only real laugh comes when Frigga knocks out a hyperventilating Tage during their underground reconnaissance. And it lacks the compelling characters of the latter, with only the family’s no-nonsense matriarch making any notable impression. Young Royals fans, in particular, will be left disappointed that Ryding, who plays the dashing prince in Netflix’s queer teen drama, is required to do little more than sulk.

The residents of Kiruna run for cover.

Luckily, Holm, who also co-wrote the script with son Robin, fares better when the film finally kicks into gear with the sight of a crooked lamppost and a young toddler nearly pulled into a pit of quicksand. Anyone with a fear of spelunking should prepare for deeply claustrophobic cave scenes that evoke The Descent , The 33, and even, thanks to a stray hand rising from a mountain of rubble, the closing shot of Carrie . Anyone with a severe case of vertigo, meanwhile, should brace for the climactic rescue involving a pulley system, several pretty brutal impalings, and a sinkhole the size of a skyscraper.

Most impressive is the terrifying sequence when all hell breaks loose as the town center is literally rocked to its foundations, with a frustratingly jammed car seatbelt, motherless stroller, and increasingly powerful tsunami of debris and dust all ramping up the tension. It’s clearly evident The Abyss doesn’t have the same budget or wealth of VFX talent at its disposal as the average Tinseltown B-movie, yet it makes the most of its limited resources.

Divorcees Tage and Frigga just before the mining expedition from hell.

And as you’d expect from a nation that prides itself on humility, it doesn’t stretch the boundaries of credulity, either. The Abyss is the kind of lean disaster film that gets in and out without unnecessarily destroying any major landmarks or obliterating entire populations. Its most destructive set-piece lasts barely five minutes, and while there are a handful of notable fatalities, the body count is far from cataclysmic.

The Roland Emmerichs of this world can rest assured the Swedes aren’t going to muscle in on their territory any time soon. But for those who prefer their disaster flicks without so much bombast, then this abyss is worth peeking into.

This article was originally published on Feb. 19, 2024

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Good One: A Show About Jokes’ On Peacock, Charting Mike Birbiglia’s Course As He Writes A New Comedy Show

Where to stream:, atsuko okatsuka: the intruder.

• Mike Birbiglia

Mike Birbiglia Recalls Joining His Campus Improv Group And Finding His People In This ‘Good One: A Show About Jokes’ First Look: “That Was Like A Huge Breakthrough In My Life”

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Good One is a podcast about jokes hosted by Vulture editor Jesse David Fox , but its adaptation into a documentary isn’t so much a visual representation of his podacst so much as it is an extension of comedian Mike Birbiglia’s podcast, Working It Out . Fox is an executive producer on this doc, which followed Birbiglia as he began crafting new jokes last year following The Old Man & The Pool , which enjoyed a Broadway run from October 2022 to January 2023 and aired on Netflix last November.

GOOD ONE: A SHOW ABOUT JOKES : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A quote from the late great George Carlin appears onscreen, reading: “The creation of material is the ultimate freedom because that’s creating the world I want.”

The Gist: We’re at the Columbus Theatre in Providence, R.I., where Mike Birbiglia takes us up from the green room to the balcony, where he explains this is where he’ll start the arduous process of writing a new one-man comedy show, as a montage reminds us of The Old Man & The Pool (complete with footage of Birbiglia on Late Night with Seth Meyers , because also, Meyers is an EP and talking head in this). “Super exciting. And then it ends, and it’s like, ‘Well, I can’t tour that anymore.’ And so then it’s like, well now what do I do?”

Every hour of stand-up comedy has to start with that first new bit, in that first new show, even if Birbiglia isn’t yet sure where he wants to wind up in the end, which he says might take 500 shows or more to figure out before it’s ready for Broadway. “What’s the next show about? It’s like, I don’t know until I figure out what I’m obsessed with.” So he starts (or at least, we start out) with a bit reflecting upon his recent stay with his wife in a Rhode Island AirBnB.

We cut to a Providence pizzeria, where we meet two of Birbiglia’s older siblings, brother Joe and sister Gina. Joe has worked for Mike for years now, but why didn’t he become a comic, the actual comic wonders. Mike also reveals that their father, a doctor, had discouraged his funny son from saying anything too personal onstage, but Mike realized doing so unlocked the key to his success because “the connection can be so deep” if you reveal yourself to an audience, he says. “It’s almost like the great metaphor for being a comedian is like, it’s the person who trips a lot and then figures out how to write about it in a funny way.” In The New One , Birbiglia worried about becoming a father. In Old Man , he worried about dying. But where does he go from there? “What’s more high-stakes than death?”

Journaling provides him with both a release valve on a daily basis (“you don’t have to be polite to a journal”) as well as a possible source for material months or even years later, as he can flip back through the pages to see what was driving his emotions and whether any of it might be mined for laughs. We also get outside perspective from Ira Glass (the radio host who helped produce Birbiglia’s earliest one-man shows) as well as stand-up Hasan Minhaj, who says he admires Birbiglia’s work ethic and particularly his method of laying out shows via index cards, and we see Birbiglia sit down with his brother, a producer, and an assistant in an office he keeps in Providence to run potential jokes and stories by them all.

Later we follow Birbiglia north to his hometown of Shrewsbury, Mass., where he walks us through his childhood home (occupied now by friendly strangers who welcome the camera crew) as well as his Catholic school, where he roams the halls with two childhood friends who remind him and us that Birbiglia wasn’t thought of as funny before college. So we cut to Washington, D.C., where Birbiglia won the funniest student on campus at Georgetown (in a contest where he met fellow undergrad Nick Kroll), which allowed him to open for Dave Chappelle at the DC Improv and get a job at the club as a doorman. That job, he says, allowed him to watch and study visiting headliners, and also gave him hope and inspiration.

We then see how Birbiglia passes that inspiration on to other comedians, having his assistant Gary Simons open for him at the DC Improv, or bringing Atsuko Okatsuka with him on tour. It turns out Birbiglia’s inquisitive nature prompted Okatsuka’s show to eventually become The Intruder and debut on HBO at the end of 2022.

None of this has really answered Birbiglia’s initial challenge to himself to find out what his new show will actually be about, though. And he’s OK with that for now, knowing that something major will happen either to himself or his family in the next year, and that’ll wind up giving him the through line or theme for his next special. “Being an autobiographical comedian is not…it’s not advisable,” he jokes. “But also, it’s my favorite type of comedy.”

What Documentaries Will It Remind You Of: When Jerry Seinfeld stopped telling many of his greatest joke hits at the end of the 1990s and the end of his sitcom, we got to see him start from scratch in Comedian . This is kind of like that, but without a comic foil, and much more interested in the process of writing jokes and putting them together.

Our Take: Birbiglia says his two biggest comedy influences were Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg, which might sound odd to his current fans who likely don’t think of him as a surreal joke-teller. But he also cites Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip as the key inspiration for his pivot to storytelling in Sleepwalk With Me , and it’s a nice bonus to see clips of all three of those stand-up legends.

It’s also wild to find out that while Birbiglia keeps his home in New York City, he keeps his business in Providence. He might crack a joke in that first show about it: “I think Providence is a first draft town…that’s why my family lives here.” But it’s probably also great to get out of the city to clear the comedy brain, reconnect with family, and have a safe space to test out brand new material.

Meyers tells us he admires Birbiglia’s work ethic, as Meyers himself only has one Netflix special to his own credit. To be so vulnerable onstage, but also so polished, but also make it feel like he’s not just delivering a monologue. That is what makes a comedian great. Or as Meyers put it: “A comedian only makes it work onstage if it looks like it’s the first time they’re saying it. If it doesn’t seem natural, the audience feels ripped off. You weirdly have to put all this time into it to make it look like you’re coming up with it off the top of your head.”

Minhaj, for his part, recites a Hindi phrase demonstrating why parents and family members might not feel comfortable when their funny relative dishes onstage. Birbiglia’s wife tells us she wasn’t sure how to feel when he joked about them becoming parents. And yet Birbiglia tells a workshop of college students that he probably has written all of these personal shows just to please his wife.

Given the Good One tie-in, I’m surprised we only hear Fox’s voice cut through once about 28 minutes in, suggesting to Birbiglia in a sit-down interview that his bullying story fits in with some of his other material. If you were a podcast fan, you might wonder about the hands-off approach, but so be it.

That it ends without an ending is probably more beneficial than problematic, though, because it means that whenever Birbiglia does bring his next show to Netflix or Broadway, it’ll include lots more than what we see in this 46-minute doc.

Sex and Skin: Nope.

Parting Shot: After a montage of outtakes, Okatsuka gets the last word on camera: “Yeah, good job everyone.”

Sleeper Star:  Birbiglia’s big brother, Joe, receives lots of props as the funniest Birbiglia, but in the end, this doc serves as an even more effective promotional vehicle for Okatsuka, as her dance moves and descriptions of The Intruder will likely lead plenty of viewers to check out her special on Max.

Our Call: STREAM IT. This is a fascinating look at the process of developing not just a bunch of jokes, but figuring out how they all come together to create a cohesive whole, a narrative arc, a theme, or maybe they don’t…

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories:  The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First .

• Good One: A Show About Jokes
• Stream It Or Skip It

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Tom hardy's new movie is fixing a 7-year rotten tomatoes streak i can't quite believe happened.

Tom Hardy has starred in some of the best movies of the last 15 years but his recent films have failed to impress critics, creating a shocking streak.

• Tom Hardy's new movie The Bikeriders breaks his Rotten Tomatoes dry spell, boasting a solid 83% rating with high praise from critics.
• Hardy has only starred in two "Rotten" movies from 2008 to 2017, setting an impressive hot streak.
• Despite box office successes with Venom, Hardy could attain critical acclaim with upcoming projects like Havoc and Mad Max: The Wasteland.

Tom Hardy's new movie The Bikeriders is finally fixing a rotten streak for the celebrated actor. The 46-year-old actor has appeared in some of the most popular and acclaimed films of the last 15 years and continues to be one of the biggest names in Hollywood. However, after the massive success of his hit blockbusters such as Inception (2010), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), and Dunkirk (2017) , his most recent movies have not fared as well among critics. Hardy has solidified himself as the face of the modern Venom franchise, which includes two of his highest-grossing movies.

Hardy will star in The Bikeriders alongside Oscar-nominated actor Austin Butler in what appears to be one of his first critically acclaimed films in quite a while. The Bikeriders was dropped by Disney before eventually finding another home at Focus Features. The film, which was written and directed by Jeff Nichols ( Mud , Midnight Special , Loving ), will also star Michael Shannon, Jodie Comer, Norman Reedus, and Mike Faist. The Bikeriders , which premiered back at the 50th Telluride Film Festival in August 2023 and was originally slated for theatrical release on December 1 of that year, currently has a release date of June 21, 2024.

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The bikeriders is tom hardy's first fresh movie on rotten tomatoes since 2017, christopher nolan's dunkirk was hardy's last fresh movie.

Between Dunkirk and The Bikeriders , Hardy has only starred in three movies, two of which were the Venom films.

It's surprising that Hardy, who had a hot streak of critically acclaimed movies during the first half of the 2010s , has not starred in a Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh movie since Christophe Nolan's Oscar-winning Dunkirk. While The Bikeriders is not receiving the same high level of praise that Dunkirk did, which won Oscars in only technical categories such as editing and mixing, it is still Hardy's highest-rated movie in an astounding seven years. The most evident reason for this massive gap is the various delays that have happened in Hollywood with the 2023 WGA and SAG strikes as well as the pandemic.

The Bikeriders was also slated for a 2023 release and was completed far before its current release date of June 21, 2024, adding another delay to the Hardy film. It's also surprising how few movie roles Hardy has taken on in recent years despite the inevitable delays that all of Hollywood were forced to endure. Between Dunkirk and The Bikeriders , Hardy has only starred in three movies, two of which were the Venom films. His only other movie during that time period was the 2020 crime biopic Capone , which was highly-anticipated before receiving scathing reviews and earning just a 40% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Austin Butler & Tom Hardy's Biker Movie Was Already Spoiled By A 16-Year-Old TV Show

Why the bikeriders' reviews are so good, it currently has an 83% on rotten tomatoes.

The Bikeriders currently has an impressive 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews , a metric that is subject to change once the movie is widely released nationwide in theaters this summer. Peter Debruge of Variety wrote of The Bikeriders , " It goes a long way to humanize figures who’ve been long misrepresented on film, while giving audiences privileged access to this inner world ." Robbie Collin of the Daily Telegraph wrote, " Nichols’s film is less interested in telling a story than pinning down a particular time, place and attitude – and does so with such pungent precision, you can all but smell it ."

While The Bikeriders has been mostly praised, a few, but not many, critics have commented on some of the film's apparent flaws . Kevin Maher of Times (UK) wrote in his review of The Bikeriders , " And yet it’s also largely incurious, and rarely delves beneath the macho posturing of its “bad boy” protagonists, preferring to celebrate their leather-clad camaraderie and the many raw-knuckle donnybrooks that fill their lazy, booze-addled days. " Some critics have also criticized the lack of emotional depth in The Bikeriders despite featuring a constant display of visually striking images and sharp, dedicated direction from Jeff Nichols.

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Tom hardy had an incredible rotten tomatoes streak - before venom, hardy only had 2 rotten movies from 2018 to 2017.

Hardy could seemingly do no wrong from 2008 to 2017, despite the two misfires This Means War (2010) and Child 44 (2015).

Hardy had an impeccable hot streak on Rotten Tomatoes for nearly a decade straight. From 2008, when he really started to break out in leading roles in films such as Bronson , to 2017, when Dunkirk was released, he only had two "Rotten" movies. Hardy could seemingly do no wrong from 2008 to 2017, despite the two misfires This Means War (2010) and Child 44 (2015). Anticipation for 2018's Venom would not have been higher until it was released and mostly ripped apart by critics. Despite the poor critical reception, Hardy's Venom films have high audience scores on RT and are massive box office successes.

Hardy looks to flip the script with The Bikeriders , which could hopefully inspire another impressive hot streak. The Bikeriders is currently rated higher than 2015's The Revenant on Rotten Tomatoes, which received a score of 78%. This is promising news considering that The Revenant took home 3 Academy Awards in 2016 and was nominated for Best Picture of the Year. Hardy did appear in three episodes of the critically acclaimed television series Peaky Blinders in 2017 and 2022, which has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and is widely considered one of the best dramatic television series of the 21st century.

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Tom hardy's rotten tomatoes turnaround probably won't last, venom 3 will likely receive the same critical fate as its predecessors.

The Bikeriders should maintain its status as Hardy's first critically acclaimed movie since Dunkirk , but it'd be surprising if Venom 3 starts a new hot streak.

The Bikeriders should maintain its status as Hardy's first critically acclaimed movie since Dunkirk , but it'd be surprising if Venom 3 starts a new hot streak for the acclaimed actor. Although Venom 3 should perform in the same ballpark as Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) at the global box office , it would be very surprising if it ended up being a better film than the first two movies. If the Venom franchise has proven anything, it's that Hardy is enough of a pull and Venom is a compelling enough character to generate a huge audience.

Making Venom: The Last Dance a critical success might not be the main priority for the Sony cash cow. Hardy has numerous projects that are rumored to be in development but two known projects of his are currently in production sound promising. The Gareth Evans ( The Raid: Redemption ) directed action thriller Havoc stars Hardy as a police detective fighting his way through a criminal underworld. Hardy will also reprise his role as Max Rockatansky in the upcoming Mad Max: The Wasteland from George Miller, which should be an instant classic. Even if Venom 3 can't maintain the acclaim of The Bikeriders , there's plenty more on the horizon for Hardy.

The Bikeriders