Metacritic reviews

Writer-director Mike White has crafted a painfully funny and surprisingly moving character piece, but what’s most remarkable is how he and his star empathize with Brad’s feelings of inferiority while, at the same time, pinpointing the arrogance, privilege and callousness that often factor into such soul-searching.

With movies experiencing a glaring dearth in quietly human, perceptively satirical comedy, the appearance of Brad’s Status is something of a breath of fresh air. Even if that atmosphere is the occasionally sour odor of regret, the sharply drawn, considerate nature of White’s approach allows us to enjoy the tang and sweetness simultaneously.

Even as Brad’s Status doesn’t overextend its reach, Stiller gives the material a touching, soulful core.

The film is less contemptuous of Brad than compassionate: brutally honest about his faults, yet ultimately understanding of them.

Brad's Status is good enough to make you wish it were even better: tighter, bolder, sharper. But it's a droll, affecting movie — and, in its exploration of a man's fantasies of success and fears of failure, his trudge through the weeds of pessimism toward optimism, a distinctly American one.

Of course, this is social satire and some bits are very funny...but the message is too obvious and the humour too gentle for the whole affair not to feel like so much white male whining.

Brad’s Status is a frustrating concoction. There’s a script full of insight but also inanity and while the performances might jump out, the direction falls flat. Stiller is back on the right route but, like Brad, he could afford to take a more daring detour every now and then.

The film becomes so self-aware that it’s tough to discern whether we should take what’s happening seriously or not.

With little drama or humor, it mostly amounts to watching a guy complain about his fairly decent life for 100 minutes.

Brad’s Status rarely affords its titular character an opportunity to have a real conversation with anyone else his own age, so the movie becomes a monologue from someone you quickly realize you don’t really want to get to know anyway.