Old Joy may be built around a road trip, but it's also a movie about two roads -- and two souls -- diverging. full review

You may find yourself asking whether anything's going to happen. But for those who can tolerate a slow-brewing movie, [director] Reichardt's work provides sufficient rewards.

Subdued, artistic, with beautifully nuanced performances that are as true as they are often elusive of commercial triumph. full review

At just 76 minutes, Old Joy is a minimalist film, but illuminating, bittersweet, gentle and deeply alive.

The movie captures gorgeous mountain scenery with the simplicity of an Ozu film. It also benefits from the naturalistic performances. full review

It plays for a scant 73 minutes, but if feels as long as a Wagner opera. full review

The real resonance of Reichardt's at once lean and profound little movie is that, without saying anything directly, it can seem to say so much. full review

Wise, resonant and genuinely special. full review

Old Joy's not-going- anywhere-ness is a big part of its charm.

Fresh as spring water and warm as sunlight, it steeps us in the beauties we will always miss, if we keep dividing the world into winners and losers. full review

The movie explores the increasingly coarse line between nostalgia and acceptance for the way things are, without exclamatory revelation and uproarious self-pity. It's Sideways for realists. full review

About [Kelly Reichardt's] directing, after praising her simplicity, one has to praise her daring. To make this film took considerable conviction -- and, for an artist, conviction usually entails courage.

Slow moving but ultimately quite touching. full review

It feels so real it hurts, and it's the perfect antidote to all those movies where all sorts of stuff blows up. full review

Captures the weary mood of a generation that's crested its peak along with an era, quietly making a case for how well suited film can be to capturing the finer points of human interaction while preserving their mystery. full review

Let us say simply that Ms. Reichardt's brand of minimalism leaves me truly joyless.

Old Joy is another minimalist exercise that is at once visually stunning, quietly insightful and more than a little hard to endure.

Kelly Reichardt's minimalist buddy film about two former roommates on an overnight camping trip in Oregon's Cascade Mountains features some of the year's most beautiful scenery and two of its most wooden characters. full review

Old Joy (adapted by writer Jonathan Raymond from his own short story) is only 76 minutes long, but it has the contemplative power of Buddhist meditation. full review

Every frame of Old Joy bespeaks a yearning for a more user-friendly day, when gas was less than $2.50 a gallon and there was always a used record store to unload your scratched vinyl. full review