Director Alfredo De Villa doesn't play it for the kind of knockabout comedy so often seen in these films (like the shrill hit «Four Christmases»). (seanax.com)
Much of the humor in the film is of a character - based variety, which kind of surprised me in a good way because the first trailers seemed to suggest a more knockabout comedy with plenty of sight gags like Melissa McCarthy falling off of her motorcycle. (rogerebert.com)
You get the picture, but though The Seagull has its moments of quietly knockabout farce, mostly the movie inclines intimately, subtly, to the sadness of the incomplete life. (npr.org)