Metacritic reviews

A genial, lightweight farce, which largely approximates Hornby's distinctively bittersweet tone.

Trivialising despair, it’s a depressing waste of a major cast, and an early bid for mess of the year.

At best, this is a cringey stab at black comedy redeemed by charismatic stars; at worst it’s a glib and manipulative punt on a subject that deserves more care.

The novel A Long Way Down is not-quite-vintage Nick Hornby. And this is a disappointing film version, a bit hokey and fake.

The film wavers between the drippy and the glib from start to finish, sometimes within the course of a single scene.

An inept trifle, Pascal Chaumeil's film reduces Nick Hornby's novel of the same name to a series of smug self-help gestures.

The film is awful, but it is not unwatchable.

The film forms a near-perfect storm of misjudged decisions, with its implausible plot, irritating or outright-dislikeable characters, and strained attempts at “wacky” British humor that fall so flat they’re below sea level.

Jack Thorne's screenplay has all the emotional nuance of a Sudoku puzzle; directed by French romcom veteran Pascal Chaumeil (Heartbreaker), it's bouncy and vacuous enough to feel like a light comedy from the planet Neptune.

It’s worse than tacky, trivializing depression for a handful of easy laughs and pop-psychology platitudes.