The Go-Getter: Critic Reviews

The first road movie that could fit into the mumblecore genre of dithering youth angst: The Go-Getter travels, but it doesn't go anywhere.

Much of the dialogue is so quirky it sounds overheard instead of scripted. The performances are correspondingly spontaneous.

If you can look past writer-director Martin Hynes's familiar fest formula, his film modestly rewards with gorgeous sun-spotted cinematography, tender digressions in rather brave quantities, and believably charming dialogue.

Martin Hynes's first film, The Go-Getter, is an especially wonderful addition to the [road movie] genre, with the right -- flickering -- mixture of loneliness and enchantment, and with jokes that come at you from just around the bend.

Writer-director Martin Hynes takes advantage of the vast possibilities of the open road and what can only be refashioned personal experience to invigorate The Go-Getter, an unusually fresh-feeling indie with a nice sense of style.

The transition from the slopes of Sundance to the hard streets of everywhere else is the artistic equivalent of the bends.

A fairly well-made picture that's just been fairly well-made too many times before, a knock-off of a thousand other knock-offs.

Strives for hipness but ultimately just feels contrived and derivative.

Director-writer Martin Hynes shapes his first movie into something emotionally truthful, painfully funny and vibrantly alive.

There are moments of beauty here, but not enough to make up for the mannered dialogue and hamstrung performances.

Mature road-trip dramedy doesn't go anywhere new.

Even when relegated to an audio-only part, Deschanel has a flattering whimsy that etches her hurt and sensuality in equal measures.

Seems to have sprung from a how-to-get-to-Sundance template, with a framework plot that serves as a mere Christmas tree on which to hang baubles of quirk.

Given proper promotion, however, one can see Merce--and The Go-Getter--getting chased down by appreciative arthouse audiences.

It's a great premise, and the movie rarely disappoints. (OK, we didn't need the song-and-dance number, but still ...) Hynes has style to spare and storytelling chops. The low-key Go-Getter is well worth discovering.

Hipster filmmaking-by-numbers.

It's cute, familiar and forgettable.

Hopefully, future film classes will use this picture as template for how not to make a movie.

More than a movie about becoming an adult, The Go-Getter is a feature-length audition reel for Deschanel to finally get the roles she deserves.

Behold, indie-rock hipsters: The Go-Getter, the cinematic navel lint from which She & Him crawled out to produce the almost cruel monotony of Volume One.

How many road trip movies of self discovery starring artsy, skinny, white kids that fall in love with unconventionally cute little brown-haired girls do we need?

The Go-Getter is a nearly perfect demonstration of what happens when what was once a frontier for exploration becomes a factory floor for repetition.