It's another Los Angeles movie that is alternately self-congratulatory and self-pitying...
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09/28/09
Shrink (2009)
26
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:47
Fresh:12
Rotten:35
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Kevin Spacey's performance is almost sharp enough to save Shrink, but in the end, he's dragged down by a cliched script and indifferent direction.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: What happens when the people we count on to hold us together...are barely holding it together themselves? Jonas Pate's Shrink is a striking, fast-paced expose of the "other" Hollywood, featuring... [More]
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Mark Webber, Keke Palmer, Saffron Burrows
Director: Jonas Pate
Reviews for Shrink
Some of the humor is delicious. And there are a few fine moments of truth and pathos, most of them addressing a subset of grief often ignored on film.
07/31/09
A tart drama that probes and exposes shadowy entrails of the glamor capital but illuminating depth is not its most therapeutic effect.
07/23/09
A depressing drama about a Hollywood shrink who has it all and is experiencing a crisis.
07/23/09
It's an impressively convoluted piece of writing, but it loses it shine when it becomes clear that neither Moffett nor Pate know where they are going with these stories
10/06/09
The characters are so flatly conceived and their dilemmas so familiar that you wonder if the filmmakers even aspired to be original. Luckily, Kevin Spacey plays Carter with scene-saving grace.
07/31/09
As many facile conclusions as moments of wry humor.
07/24/09
Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, and when those sparks emanate from a doobie clutched by Kevin Spacey, a smug critique of the American dream is sure to follow.
08/20/09
[Spacey's] good, but the film doesn't find an emotional center, and we're left with actors acting out.
07/30/09
Top CriticAs all of Shrink's seemingly disparate stories begin to fall too cleverly into each other, it's easy to be distracted by some fine performances.
08/06/09
It wants to be Good Will Hunting set in the land of Entourage, but its bummed-out touchy-feeliness is every bit as concocted as its overly jaded showbiz corruption.
07/22/09
Director Jonas Pate and screenwriter Thomas Moffett have turned this strongly cast, potentially smart tale of personal intersection among a mostly rarefied group of Los Angelenos into an irritating and unconvincing slog.
07/24/09
Top CriticThe script by Thomas Moffett slickly satirizes the movie industry's fascination with vampires and special effects without being especially compelling or original.
07/30/09
It's ironic that the movie is called Shrink, because it practically shrinks before your eyes.
07/31/09
Like smog settling over Los Angeles, a creeping sense of anomie haunts the Hollywood power players and parasites sidling nervously through Shrink.
07/24/09
Top CriticThere really was a much better comedy here than melodrama.
07/31/09
Top CriticIn seeking to depict the shallowness of Hollywood life, it's hard not to appear shallow yourself.
07/31/09
Directed by Jonas Pate and written with a nice ear for self-delusion by Thomas Moffet, Shrink mixes cliches with some pleasant surprises.
07/31/09
Shrink is no worse than the average Hollywood comedy. But it shows, more obviously than most, the bankruptcy of standard-issue American pop narrative, circa 2009.
07/31/09
Never mind the crazy cast; this weary retread of trendy multicharacter melodramas is what’s really unhinged.
07/23/09
Latest News for Shrink
August 26, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
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