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06/24/06
The Talent Given Us (2004)
58
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:48
Fresh:28
Rotten:20
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: The Talent Given Us is an odd hybrid of reality and fiction, but works due to its engaging characters.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Like a cinema vérité version of THE DAYTRIPPERS, writer-director Andrew Wagner's quirky indie dramedy THE TALENT GIVEN US fashions a hilarious, unconventional, but ultimately moving take on family... [More]
Starring: Allen Wagner, Judy Wagner, Emily Wagner, Maggie Wagner
Director: Andrew Wagner
Reviews for The Talent Given Us
Top CriticClick to read the article
09/10/05
Top CriticClick to read the article
12/06/05
Top CriticMay give even die-hard voyeurs the heebie-jeebies ... Anybody who has ever suffered through someone else's slide reel should consider this fair warning.
08/11/05
...confounding, funny, horrifying, and eventually irresistibly absorbing.
06/30/05
It's not as much fun as taking a road trip with your own family, but at least you're not stuck in the backseat of the car.
08/12/05
It's tough to describe The Talent Given Us, which is why it's fascinating.
09/22/05
[A] one-of-a-kind movie that sends the family road-trip genre happily spinning into these self-obsessed, overanalytical times; it's National Lampoon's Vacation as re-imagined by Dr. Phil.
10/13/05
Faux documentary, home movie or unexpurgated family therapy? The Talent Given Us, a funny, surprising ride with a mercurial New York clan, is all three.
10/13/05
This isn't a movie, it's a thingamajig -- frequently as off-putting as can be, but unassailably one of a kind.
06/16/05
This raw, fascinating, often unpleasant film is not in the least coy about its queasy mix of exploitation and therapeutic exhibitionism.
06/14/05
The ranting, whining, kvetching, self-involved family begins to outstay its welcome [...] so that time spent with them can feel like entrapment at a raucous bar mitzvah reception.
03/01/07
You will never see anything like it in your entire life, but I'm not exactly sure it should ever be seen outside first-time director Andrew Wagner's living room.
06/14/05
The Talent Given Us appalls as much as it entertains.
06/30/05
If you have the chance to be an onlooker on the Wagner's family trip though, you should drop everything and get on board.
06/18/05
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04/29/09
Ultimately the film's insights and observations seem not so much universal as self-absorbed and solipsistic.
07/12/05
Top CriticPretty much a stunt, and not an entirely successful one...on balance the nuggets are embedded in just too much dross.
08/16/05
Weird and wonderful.
06/17/05
Maybe Andrew Wagner was hoping they would be endearingly human, but instead they come off as annoying, hardly the type of people we want to be stuck with for an hour and a half.
10/14/05
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