Metacritic reviews

The film loses form a bit as it lumbers towards its final moments, but the juice is worth the squeeze. All involved here are determined to find the laughter in the pain of dealing with other people. And if there must be blood, so be it.

The film never loses its strong sense of character, but those characters deserve a bit more love than they’re afforded. Still, Lynskey and Wood see it through.

It’s the perfect role for Lynskey, who’s wise enough to underplay her character, which allows audiences to pour their own fears and frustrations into everything Ruth represents. And what emerges is a stalwart actress’s best work yet, delivered by an exciting new director to watch.

The film, also written by Blair, manages an impressive balancing act in term of its tricky, quicksilver tone, which constantly oscillates between foreboding, menacing, hilarity and absurdity without ever feeling incongruous.

The film plays like a Trump-state "Big Lebowski," as Ruth and Tony’s amateur sleuthing teases out a much deeper conviction, perfectly stated by its main character.

What Blair is trying to do is quite ambitious for his first feature. He alternates moments of high comedy with serious tension and a touch of magic realism for kicks. For the most part, the tone works.

It escalates past the point of absurdity, but all you can do as an audience member is shake your head and laugh.

Ultimately, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World feels like an ambitious experiment from a first-time filmmaker trying everything at once. It’s scattershot, but it’s also goofy, creepy, and just wild surprising fun.

Although it’s sometimes uneven with somewhat underdeveloped characters, I Don’t Feel at Home is nonetheless a clever blend of two very different genres. Blair’s mix of humor and feverish violence works best in the film’s final act, when things turn completely nutty.

Lynskey’s shivering rage and Wood’s Zen incompetence play off beautifully against each other, and Blair deftly juggles the suspense, humor and social overtones of his script. Until, that is, the film’s final 30 or 40 minutes, when he settles for genre schlock and the revelatory film we thought we were watching devolves into a less interesting, more familiar one.