Most of the reviews come down in favour, and the praise gathers around the cast. Critics agree the ensemble is well acted, that Kasdan’s dialogue catches how old university friends in their thirties actually talk, and that the reunion banter and shared rituals feel true. Several find it sharp and melancholy at once, poignant without turning sticky. The Motown soundtrack is mentioned by nearly everyone, more often as a pleasure than a fault.
The disagreement is about depth, and it is wide. Even admirers say the film has all the right moves and no real payoff, preferring cosy nostalgia to a hard look at what these former activists once believed. The dissenters go further. The New Yorker calls it slick, over-controlled and shallow; Slant Magazine objects to pandering nostalgia and a fetishised soundtrack; The Hollywood Reporter finds the screenplay losing focus among the romantic liaisons. That same soundtrack, warmly received elsewhere, is for these critics the film’s most intrusive habit.