Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Abularfia
Is i think a perfect way to describe my viewing experience of "Barney's -Version". This film is both parts entertaining comedy as well as heart-felt tragedy. Which really surprised me that such a combination was even possible, but this film succeeded in building a bridge between this (in opinion until i watched the movie) unlink-able depths of human emotions. The movie starts of very strong and reaches it entertaining highs mid-film. it does loose a bit of its sharpness after that but it does return to its high form near the end. hence the rating of 7/10.Overall "Barneys-Version" is a good and well made movie, manifesting my view on Paul Giamatti as being a very talented actor and the film getting a recommendation from me.
Red_Identity
This is a really sort of unique little comedy/drama. It really does try to have an even balance, starting off as a comedy but then turning into a dark comedy and eventually turning into some sort of drama. Paul Giamatti is absolutely fantastic, of course, changing natural from emotional note to emotional note in a way that makes other actors look like they're straining. Rosamund Pike is also really great, infusing such a natural warmth and presence to her character, completely opposite to what she does with her role in Gone Girl, which is for my money, the best performance of 2014. As a film overall, it could've easily come across as forced or fake, but it never actually does. It manages to make a great impact in what it does.
edwagreen
A truly excellent film which showcases the acting talent of Paul Giamatti. He plays a man who marries 3 times in the film. His first two marriages are a disaster resulting in one suicide and one divorce. His 3rd marriage appears to be a huge success, until one mistake leads to divorce again and heartbreak.Dustin Hoffman is wonderful in a supporting role as Giamatti's father. He certainly got what he had wished for in life.We see a lot of Jewish nuances throughout the film.This is primarily a film dealing with unconventional people over a 30 year period. To say that they lack conformity is to put it mildly.
David
I like Paul Giamatti as an actor but he seemed a little out of place here. His character, Barney, seems to be some kind of sexaholic and we follow him as he flits uncontrollably from one woman to another to another. Luckily the women are fairly awful people as well so you don't have to feel sorry for them either. As other people have pointed out, it's a hell of a stretch to imagine any of those women being interested in him in reality so that kind of makes the film ridiculous from the get-go. It's clear he's a selfish slave to his compulsions but without any exploration as to why, or any struggle to control it, it seems a pointless meandering around a stranger's love life. I didn't see the point. I felt no real connection with him so when bad things happened to him I simply didn't care - in fact it's one of the rare occasions where I was cheering for the other guys instead. It tries to go all lovey-dovey and sentimental in a couple of places but it doesn't work because we've already witnessed him or his lovers being unconscionable tarts in the rest of the film. There were some good actors, good locations and good elements for a story here but the "story" didn't do it justice. I think they could've used the turn of events towards the end to much better effect to lift the film out of the doldrums, but instead it was wasted. A thoroughly pointless film as far as I'm concerned.
