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Metascore
34 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijA more mature work from actor-director-producer Zach Braff that feels like a Garden State for grown-ups.
- 60Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekVillage VoiceStephanie ZacharekWish I Was Here is at least stretching toward something, and even if its reach exceeds its grasp, Braff's earnest determination as a filmmaker and performer helps smooth out some of the awkward bumps.
- 57Film.comWilliam GossFilm.comWilliam GossSprawling between plot lines and shifting between tones for longer than it ought to, but laden with enough pockets of truth to make you wish it had been better, more restrained, more disciplined, more trusting in its own emotional sensitivity to spare us all manner of dorky detours.
- 42The PlaylistCory EverettThe PlaylistCory EverettWish I Was Here is not a total disaster, but the tricky tone seems like it needed more time in the editing room to focus its story and trim some of the extraneous threads.
- 40The TelegraphAmber WilkinsonThe TelegraphAmber WilkinsonIt feels as though it would have been better served as a six-part sitcom, where its sentimentality, broad comedy and fantasy elements wouldn't rub up against each other so badly.
- 40Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfSome will find the director’s toothless brand of epiphany comforting (and download his mixtape), but the vast majority will find it tired.
- 38Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperChicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDirector/co-writer/actor Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here is a precious and condescending exercise in self-indulgent pandering, featuring one of the whiniest lead characters in recent memory.
- 30VarietyScott FoundasVarietyScott FoundasThe result is unquestionably an auteur film, but one festooned with so many bad and unnecessary ideas that one can’t help wondering if a more modest, hemmed-in version of the same project might not have proved more effective.
- 25Slant MagazineChris CabinSlant MagazineChris CabinIt's hard to see the fiscal woes at the center of Zach Braff's second feature as anything more than a fashionable depiction of first-world problems.