75
Metascore
35 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfMatthew McConaughey finally locates his perfect métier as the town's Fordian skeptic, a district attorney who smells a rat.
- 83The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThough the lightness of Bernie can get disconcerting at times, even cartoonish, Linklater approaches the story with a bemused curiosity that seems about right under the circumstances.
- 80Village VoiceNick PinkertonVillage VoiceNick PinkertonRichard Linklater's Bernie is the rarest of rarities: a truly unexpected film. It might be classified as a black comedy, for it deals with the murder of an 81-year-old woman in a fashion that is not exactly tragic.
- 70VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangPitch-perfect performances by Shirley MacLaine and an unusually restrained Jack Black hold together this offbeat true-crime saga, but Linklater's keen eye for human eccentricity flowers most memorably on the periphery.
- 70The New YorkerDavid DenbyThe New YorkerDavid DenbyIt's an odd movie - mild in tone and circumspect, yet darkly funny, and done in a hybrid form that I don't think has been used so thoroughly before.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMore than the film that surrounds him, Jack Black is worth the price of admission in Bernie, an oddball May-December true life crime story that would have profited from being a whole lot darker and full-bodied than it is.
- 58Entertainment WeeklyAdam MarkovitzEntertainment WeeklyAdam MarkovitzAll those twangy, homespun observations interrupt and annotate the narrative until Black and MacLaine's scenes start to feel as trivial as reenactments on a true-crime TV show.
- Bernie is an interesting guy, but he doesn't make for very good company.
- 38Slant MagazineSlant MagazineA surprisingly shapeless true-crime farce which never creates a convincing context for the odd relationship between a pious East Texas mortician and his sugar mama.