Metacritic reviews

There’s raw power in Chomko’s writing, but so much scrupulousness and craft that you feel safe when the time comes to weep.

Chomko doesn’t drag on a scene longer than it should be; there’s an expediency to her storytelling that gets the point across without the film feeling rushed. It’s blunt and bold, just like its characters.

What They Had is an indie drama of a familiar cut, delivered so well that you’ll forgive its smaller inconsistencies.

At first glance, you might mistake What They Had for one of those well-meaning family dramas about what to do when your mom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But that would discount the exceptional accomplishment achieved by debuting director Elizabeth Chomko, enlivening her scrappy script with a cast of actors who truly are as good as it gets. You laugh as much as you cry, which means you believe in the movie’s truth.

An excellent cast (including Michael Shannon and Hillary Swank) hit the right notes in an evenly wrought family drama that rings true.

Chomko mitigates a fairly heavy narrative agenda with a great deal of humor, sometimes threatening to make things a little too seriocomic, but never quite crossing the line into pat dramedy.

While it’s loaded with excellent ensemble performances and flashes of real poignancy, it can’t seem to help itself from occasionally jack-knifing into heavy-handed wrong turns that can play as clichéd or phony. It’s half of a great movie.

It's been made with genuine feeling and smooth professional craftsmanship.

Unfortunately, Shannon isn’t the film’s star, and What They Had loses momentum whenever he’s not on screen.

Programmatic and groaningly trite, What They Had, the debut feature from Elizabeth Chomko, would be impossible to swallow without its star-studded cast. Even so, it requires all their considerable skills to stop this soapy family drama from sliding into complete banality.