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.
Back to trending 
Almost Friends
Drama · Comedy · 2017
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
Movie details
Almost Friends
2017 Drama · Comedy 1h 45m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.
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 Almost Friends?
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.
House of D
Comedy · 2004
In the present, artist Tom Warshaw recalls his traumatic coming of age. As a 13-year-old growing up in New York City in 1973, Tom hangs out with Pappass, a mentally disabled man. With Tom's mother battling depression after the death of her husband, the young boy is left to his own devices. When Tom develops a crush on schoolmate Melissa, Pappass feels abandoned and begins behaving erratically.
Family Weekend
Comedy · 2013
A 16-year-old girl takes her parents hostage after they miss her big jump-roping competition.
Somewhere in Queens
Comedy · 2023
Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.
Landline
Comedy · 2017
A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.
The Joneses
Comedy · 2010
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban neighborhood, but when it comes to the truth as to why they're living there, they don't exactly come clean with their neighbors.
Juniper
Drama · 2021
When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.
Real Women Have Curves
Comedy · 2002
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
Class
Comedy · 1983
Naive Midwestern prep student Jonathan bonds with his more worldly roommate, Skip, who takes the small-town boy under his wing. At Skip's urging, the inexperienced Jonathan is emboldened to seek out older women in the cocktail lounges of nearby Chicago, where he meets and beds the alluring Ellen, who unfortunately turns out to be Skip's mother. The division between the friends is further deepened when a cheating scandal engulfs the school.
The House of Tomorrow
Drama · 2019
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
CQ
Comedy · 2001
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Jake Goldberger
Written by
Jake Goldberger
Freddie Highmore
Charlie Brenner
Odeya Rush
Amber
Christopher Meloni
Howard
Haley Joel Osment
Ben
Jake Abel
Jack
Rita Volk
Heather
Marg Helgenberger
Samantha
Court is in session
Put Almost Friends 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.