While Glover, the irrepressible eccentric of River's Edge, Dead Man and Back to the Future, is perfect casting for the role, he represents Bartleby's main overall flaw.
Comment
05/31/02
Bartleby (2002)
35
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:54
Fresh:19
Rotten:35
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Bartleby is a rather dull affair, stretched over a too-long running time.
Runtime: 83 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Former musician Jonathan Parker makes his feature film directorial debut with a modern retelling of the Herman Melville classic, BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER. The off-kilter comedy follows the boss of a... [More]
Starring: Crispin Glover, David Paymer, Glenne Headly, Joe Piscopo
Director: Jonathan Parker
Reviews for Bartleby
Wanna know how to make 80 minutes magically feel like five hours? Just sit through this dragging adaptation of the little-known Herman Melville novella 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'
05/31/02
Top CriticClick to read the article
05/31/02
Funny, somber, absurd, and, finally, achingly sad, Bartleby is a fine, understated piece of filmmaking.
05/31/02
Bartleby is a one-joke movie, and a bad joke at that.
05/31/02
Sad to say, it lacks the pace and energy to make it come alive and therefore remains more of a literary conceit than a movie.
05/30/02
Top CriticA Frankenstein mishmash that careens from dark satire to cartoonish slapstick, Bartleby performs neither one very well.
05/30/02
With a small budget and a brilliant team, director/co-writer Jonathan Parker has brought new relevance to Bartleby's revolt, and converted an office sitcom format into a damning critique of the way many people spend their days.
05/25/02
Uneven and half-baked.
05/24/02
It's nice to see Piscopo again after all these years, and Chaykin and Headly are priceless.
05/24/02
I admire it and yet cannot recommend it, because it overstays its natural running time.
05/24/02
Top CriticFile under B for boring.
05/24/02
Parker should be commended for taking a fresh approach to familiar material, but his determination to remain true to the original text leads him to adopt a somewhat mannered tone ... that ultimately dulls the human tragedy at the story's core.
05/23/02
As satisfyingly odd and intriguing a tale as it was a century and a half ago...has a delightfully dour, deadpan tone and stylistic consistency.
05/23/02
The loud, musty production design ... smells of recirculated air and enervated ambition, but unfortunately, so does the movie itself.
05/21/02
Jonathan Parker's Bartleby should have been the be-all-end-all of the modern-office anomie films.
05/15/02
Is office work really as alienating as 'Bartleby' so effectively makes it?
05/07/02
Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence, composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor, or an absurdist workplace sitcom.
04/16/01
Top CriticFrom its nauseating spinning credits sequence to a very talented but underutilized supporting cast, Bartleby squanders as much as it gives out.
03/27/01
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