BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Byrdz The story lines gradually intersect. Some of the characters become more likable as their stories develop. Some we come to care about and others not so much.The acting throughout is quite good. Alan Arkin at his cranky best.Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. It's just another of those "it's OK" type films.

thekarmicnomad This is a great film if you have a lot of patience and are OK with zero action.It is a massive character study, the closest comparison I can make is Magnolia. 13 Conversations lack the heavy hitting stars and soundtrack of Magnolia so has to rely more on the characters. This makes it a little more gritty, less polished but equally as satisfying.Magnolia also has a focused event at its heart making it quite a structured film. This isn't, there is no one big event that ties it altogether. The characters live their lives, sometimes their stories collide, brush against one another or completely diverge.This lack of structure really comes down to a taste. If a character's life is effected by the actions of a stranger don't naturally assume that stranger will be named or their story weaved in later on. It is possible they will never be mentioned again. This keeps you guessing and makes the film unpredictable. But it does leave loose ends that some people may find irritating.

JoeytheBrit It's always pleasing to unexpectedly stumble across an intelligent and thought-provoking film such as this. Essentially a study on both the fickle nature of happiness and our (mis)understanding of it, and of the random manner in which complete strangers can alter the path of a person's life with neither being aware of the fact, 13 Conversations interweaves the tales of a handful of characters with deceptive ease and no little skill. Not only does the film smoothly pull all the strands together, it also does so by telling a tale that is not chronologically linear, but which overlaps in the same way that its characters' lives overlaps.Perhaps the only flaw is that a disproportionate amount of screen time is given to Alan Arkin's character at a cost to the others. John Turturro's professor and Matthew McConnaughy's yuppie lawyer in particular seem to be the casualties of this, but it has to be said that Arkin gives a masterful performance and carries his part of the film with ease. The dialogue is sometimes a little too clever for its own good – we get a sense of people making speeches to each other rather than holding conversations on occasion – but, having said that, what the characters have to see is always interesting and absorbing. A very good film, worthy of its high rating.

bababear I'm giving this a solid ten even though it features a physics professor who seems to have little grasp on the subject beyond junior high level. At one point he angrily tells a student that there are "no if's in physics," possibly inspired by Tom Hanks' great line "There's no crying in baseball!" from A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN.The laws of physics are not set in stone. If they were, there would be no need to do further research and publish new textbooks. We could have "the" physics textbook like we have one times table.The First Law of Thermodynamics, the Conservation of Matter, had to be completely rewritten after the dawning of the atomic age. Students who had been forced to memorize this word for word had to memorize a revised version.Other than that, this is one of those movies that I get more out of every time I see it. And the older I get, the more I realize it's truth.If I had to put the topic of the conversations in one word it would be Change. Each of the characters have to cope with changes in their lives, some for the good and some for the bad. If there's anyone who can't identify with that, I don't know what planet they're living on.The way that characters meet up with one another by "chance" makes me wonder if the makers of CRASH are also fans of this movie.This is one of those movies that makes me thankful for home video. We have two nice big multiplexes in our area. But if you have eighteen screens and sixteen are tied up with big budget special effects spectacles (many of which, I note from the IMDb, have grossly underperformed this summer) there's not room for personal independent films.Nice work. I look forward to the film's makers' next project.