The Flick NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (91)
See it if you love incredibly inventive storytelling & staging & acting. The play turned me into a lifelong fan of Annie Baker.
Don't see it if you are uncomfortable with long drawn out silence.
See it if You appreciate brilliant writing and nuanced acting. Bonus points if you're a film geek but not necessary to appreciate its greatness.
Don't see it if You lack patience - it's long and at times can feel slow. Those stretches are deliberate and necessary to the overall vibe if this piece.
See it if cool-headed & warm-hearted, funny, haunting, & deft. Recalibrates your clock with long silences, spurs you to think, invites you to change
Don't see it if you don't want a play to ask more of you than 90 mins
See it if slice-of-life-talky-with-long-silences dramas where little happens is your thing. Was totally riveted the entire 3+ hours.
Don't see it if slice-of-life-talky-with-long-silences dramas where little happens is not your thing.
See it if you care about one of the best productions of the century. Consummately done, it's an epic written in the rituals of day-to-day work & life.
Don't see it if you don't want to work for your entertainment dollar. Requiring patience & attention, it can feel like a 3 hr foreign film w/o subtitles.
See it if You loved any of the other Sam Gold + Annie Baker collaborations (Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens, John, etc.)
Don't see it if You disliked any of the other Sam Gold + Annie Baker collaborations (Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens, John, etc.)
See it if You want to see a unique play with fantastic acting that will stay with you for a long time.
Don't see it if You find long plays where not much happens boring. But this play is worth it if you have the time.
See it if You like a show with good character development, something smart and engaging. Has humor, drama, asks good questions.
Don't see it if You do not enjoy dialogue based plays, do not want to be too involved with the characters.
Critic Reviews (30)
"Even if you've already experienced 'The Flick,' see it again. And prepare to be even more blown away...What makes 'The Flick' so extraordinary is the confluence of Baker's writing style and Gold's direction. Just as much of the dialogue is communicated through long periods of silence as through the seemingly meaningless conversations the characters have about film, life, and romance."
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"'The Flick' is consistently funny, the delivery of lines so delightfully playful at times in spite of the characters being a woeful bunch...Ms. Baker’s script is surprising in that as simple and as trivial as things first appear, an interesting story unravels slowly, revealing great insight into these three characters and their different worlds. Peeling like layers of an onion, its revelations sit with you long after it’s over."
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"The average audience member must simply settle in for the three-plus hours and trust that he or she will be carried on an emotional journey worth the investment. Most will feel the pay-off from Sam Gold’s delicate direction and supreme performances by the cast...This is Annie Baker’s story to tell. And that she does, one deliberate word and stage direction at a time."
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"The show remains a truly fascinating piece of hyper-real drama. Baker’s contemporary play regards the dreary days in the lives of three employees in a single-screen art movie house in Massachusetts...Sound dull? It isn’t. The playwright gradually and subtly reveals the inner lives and personal aches of these individuals who remain untouched by the magic that flickers on the screen."
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"It's the play's great length that allows us to sink into their work lives, to experience, in a vicarious way, the soul-deadening tedium of endlessly repeating the same simple tasks. It also enables us to appreciate the characters' resiliency, the desire to form links with one another, however shallow and brief they might be. 'The Flick' compels its audiences to experience theater — to connect to characters — in a fresh way. That can only be a good thing."
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"The tediously natural two-act drama is aimed squarely at film appreciators...I’m talking hardcore cinephiles, who can play six-degrees-of-movie-separation between Michael J. Fox and Britney Spears while tossing back stale popcorn. It also feels like a remarkably genuine depiction of what we often hear tossed around as the human condition."
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"The play is a slice of life — or, at 3 hours and 15 minutes long, more like the whole pie — detailing little moments that happen over the course of numerous shifts at the movie theater. Annie Baker is not afraid to let her characters (and the audience) sit in silence for long stretches while Avery and Sam sweep up popcorn between the aisles. It’s unlike any play I’ve ever seen, and I mean that to be the highest compliment."
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"The emphasis is on visual image, not dialogue; film, as Edward Albee has said, hates words, and theatre loves them. The pauses here are of astonishing length—Pinter, in his wildest dreams, never risked this...I am enchanted and mystified by this long, long, fine, fine play that refuses to pander to either our need for sentimental reassurances or our impatience. 3¼ hours seems just right."
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