Each destination on the trip is separated by big white - on - black intertitles stating the next stop, and the film seems to progress with an equal measure of bathos and pathos. (filmcomment.com)
It's a brilliantly modulated exercise in intelligent farce, with Baumbach conducting entrances, exits, bizarre characters (a pregnant houseguest, a nosey neighbour) and outlandish situations with a perfect touch, letting the laughs escalate without tippling over into bathos. (empireonline.com)
Diverse uses of comedy may throw into relief difficult ideas expressed through art: it can fixate on the grotesque, moderate the tragic, or playfully bathe somber themes in bathos. (museumpublicity.com)