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Sometimes Always Never

Sometimes Always Never

Drama · Comedy · 2019

Alan is a stylish tailor with moves as sharp as his suits. He has spent years searching tirelessly for his missing son Michael who stormed out over a game of Scrabble. With a body to identify and his family torn apart, Alan must repair the relationship with his youngest son and solve the mystery of an online player who he thinks could be Michael, so he can finally move on and reunite his family.

Movie details

Sometimes Always Never

“His son is missing, his family is lost, but his dress sense is immaculate.”

2019 Drama · Comedy 1h 31m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.3 / 10

3.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

82 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

67 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.4 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Alan is a stylish tailor with moves as sharp as his suits. He has spent years searching tirelessly for his missing son Michael who stormed out over a game of Scrabble. With a body to identify and his family torn apart, Alan must repair the relationship with his youngest son and solve the mystery of an online player who he thinks could be Michael, so he can finally move on and reunite his family.

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 Sometimes Always Never?

The 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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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Carl Hunter

Written by

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Bill Nighy

Bill Nighy

Alan

Sam Riley

Sam Riley

Peter

Jenny Agutter

Jenny Agutter

Margaret

Alice Lowe

Alice Lowe

Sue

Tim McInnerny

Tim McInnerny

Arthur

Louis Healy

Louis Healy

Jack

E

Ella-Grace Gregoire

Rachel

Court is in session

Put Sometimes Always Never on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

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.

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.