The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The Best You Can
Comedy · Romance · Drama · 2025
Cynthia Rand is a buttoned-up New Yorker married to a brilliant professor 25 years her senior. She begins feeling the effects of her husband’s advancing age on their relationship, just as her world is turned upside down by the arrival of sharp but chronically underachieving security guard Stan Olszewski in this smart rom-com that reunites Bacon and Sedgwick on screen for the first time in 20 years.
Movie details
The Best You Can
2025 Comedy · Romance · Drama 1h 43m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.2 / 10
1.2K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
87 %
Tomatometer
TMDB
7.0 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Cynthia Rand is a buttoned-up New Yorker married to a brilliant professor 25 years her senior. She begins feeling the effects of her husband’s advancing age on their relationship, just as her world is turned upside down by the arrival of sharp but chronically underachieving security guard Stan Olszewski in this smart rom-com that reunites Bacon and Sedgwick on screen for the first time in 20 years.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Best You Can?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Cosi
Comedy · 1996
Lewis, a young amateur theater director, is offered a job with a governmental program for the rehabilitation of mentally ill patients in a Sydney institution. His project is overrun by one of the patients, who wants to stage the opera Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart, despite the fact that none of the patients can sing or speak Italian. A comedy of errors ensues, but one which unifies the patients and their director in unexpected ways.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Michael J. Weithorn
Written by
Michael J. Weithorn
Kyra Sedgwick
Cynthia Rand
Kevin Bacon
Stan Olszewski
Judd Hirsch
Walter Rand
Brittany O'Grady
Sammi
Olivia Luccardi
CJ Moretti
Meera Rohit Kumbhani
Pramila Mahesh
Ray Romano
Doug Finkelman
Court is in session
Put The Best You Can on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.