Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
I made it two-thirds of the way through the routine sexual coming-of-age yarn "Diary of a Teenage Girl" when it occurred to me that anything else I could conceivably be doing would be more interesting.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Working from Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 graphic novel/memoir, Heller gets the shabby glamour and bleached sunshine of '70s San Francisco just right, coloring several scenes with vivid blooms of animation.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Heller's empathy and, let's be honest, her denial of prurience appears to free Powley from embarrassment. She's seizing this part, not shrinking from it.

Name : Rebecca Keegan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Big summer action movies can be thrilling, but if you really want to feel your heart pounding out of your chest, try being a 15-year-old girl for 101 minutes.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A strikingly intimate look at a teenager's sexual life in an outstanding debut film.

Name : Elaine Teng / Alias : The New Republic
It's unlikely to make a box office splash, but it's a startlingly tough, authentic depiction of budding womanhood.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The novel is life-specific, but what makes Minnie - on the page and now on the screen - greater than any one girl is how she tells her own story in her own soaringly alive voice.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is a breakthrough moment in the culture in that it depicts youthful female sexuality . not just with the unapologetic frankness the boys usually get, but with an awareness of all the places a girl's urges will take her .

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
What a ballsy film - and honest too.

Name : Kristin Tillotson / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is as rewarding as it is squirm-inducing for its honesty, audacity and artful portrayal of adolescence from a girl's point of view.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
a riveting, resonant first feature from Marielle Heller, with a breakout star performance from Brit actress Bel Powley.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's work, but it's ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn't touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
It dares to show the heroine as something more complicated than a victim. As a result the movie lands somewhere outside the battle lines of contemporary gender politics, which may be why it feels true.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Expect to feel uncomfortable watching Diary of a Teenage Girl, which is precisely the point of this finely etched debut feature by writer/director Marielle Heller.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The first thing to know about The Diary of a Teenage Girl is that young British actress Powley is staggeringly good in it.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Frank, poignant and daring, "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" invites you into the mind-set of a sexually adventurous 16-year-old girl - and suggests you leave your judgment at the door.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
For a movie about such fraught topics, sometimes rendered with admirable and non-squeamish explicitness, Diary often eschews melodrama; when the plot turns, it does so abruptly, providing a credible simulation of real-life tumult.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The film is harsh but wonderful. It shouldn't be funny, too, but somehow it is, and somehow it's the right kind of funny.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
The Diary of a Teenage Gir is the kind of movie that seems a lot more adventuresome than it is.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
Heller's debut directorial effort is incisive and universal, despite its very specific and detailed setting.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Heller approaches the film in just the right way: As an absolute outgrowth of arty Minnie's own pent-up creativity.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
Any woman who survived puberty knows that girlhood is all about obsession - just ask Justin Bieber, One Direction, New Kids on the Block, or the Beatles.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
An honest and personal and unblurred examination (even through that druggy blur) of a tricky voyage into womanhood.

Name : Nathalie Atkinson / Alias : Globe and Mail
Seldom has teenage sexual awakening been covered from a female perspective - with a fickle alternating confidence, self-doubt and voracious appetite - quite so frankly or delicately.

Name : Lisa Schwarzbaum / Alias : TIME Magazine
A movie of (increasingly rare) truly indie sensibility, made by women who are confident about healthy feminine resilience.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
Heller and Powley present a journey that, stripped to its most basic emotional elements, is timeless and universal.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Writer/director Marielle Heller, in her captivating debut film "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," hits exactly the right tone for a complicated balancing act, and for a film that could very easily have gone wrong.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Films often fail to capture the turmoil of being a teenager - but not this one.

Name : Dennis Harvey / Alias : Variety
A fine adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's autobiographical novel about a sexually precocious 1970s adolescence.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
The loose quality makes for a bit of a shaggy story with some rough edges, but the bursting, youthful heart throbs with that mix of longing and triumph that is first love.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
Thank goodness the irreverent but earnest Diary of a Teenage Girl avoids the moralizing that would usually accompany a film about young people, sex and drugs.

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Prepare to be amused, moved and inspired.

Name : Joe McGovern / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
A massive vat of hot cocoa with a mountain of whipped cream on top-sweet and warm and made with a mission to satisfy everyone who takes a sip.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
The infectious "Eddie the Eagle" succeeds by mining both aspects of Edwards's story with an equally deft touch.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
It is a rare biopic of any kind, let alone a sports bio, that merely celebrates participation. It's that novelty that makes this simple comedy shine.

Name : Leah Pickett / Alias : Chicago Reader
This inspirational heart-warmer from director Dexter Fletcher is the cinematic equivalent of a hug.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It does make you feel good, but it turns out that the film's story is 90 percent fiction.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
A triumphant, feel-good, laugh-out-loud, sports biopic.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
While it is stretching the truth to call "Eddie the Eagle" a good film, it is without question a nice one.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
Although Mr. Edwards's last-place finishes in Calgary made him something of a sensation, a symbol of do-it-yourself persistence, this film doesn't seem to trust the inherent likability of his story.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
This tale of the quixotic British athlete who became the darling of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games is a tad sugary sweet, but thanks to the performances of Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton, the end result is a family film that's highly entertaining.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
Hugh Jackman doesn't play Wolverine in "Eddie the Eagle," which is too bad. The film deserves to be slashed to bits.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Fluffy as new-fallen snow, but Egerton is terrific as the unlikely Olympian and Jackman makes a fictitious character seem almost real.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
The film never admits it, but almost everything here has been invented for the screen. That leaves a bad taste: Edwards is still very much alive, and his story is bizarre enough without embellishment.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The people responsible for "Eddie the Eagle" might have made a better movie about Samuel F.B. Morse, since they're devoted to telegraphing every plot point and potential surprise.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
It's a shame that a movie about a man with zero athletic ability, who had the fearlessness to attempt a perilous 90-meter ski jump for the first time ever in front of a rapt Olympic audience, takes no chances.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
If director Dexter Fletcher's loose adaptation of Edwards' story often seems content to mimic "Cool Runnings" beat for beat, at least it picks a bar it can safely clear.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Taron Egerton reproduces Eddie's offbeat charm, turning him into an Asperger's afflicted champion of the undertrodden.

Name : Katie Rife / Alias : AV Club
Like its protagonist, the film-produced by Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn, of all people-is cheerful and unpretentious. But unlike Eddie, it's not terribly original.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Eddie the Eagle tries to have it both ways with its main subject, simultaneously ridiculing and ennobling him. And, amazingly, it mostly works.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Director Dexter Fletcher paints Eddie's story in broad, bold strokes, never missing an opportunity to milk a suspenseful dramatic turn or go for the relatively easy laugh - but it's a style well-suited to this wonderfully ridiculous story.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The real Eddie was neither this big a klutz nor this inexperienced. But when the camera follows Egerton's Eddie waaay up and down those heart-stopping jumps, it's hard not to cheer him on regardless.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Director Dexter Fletcher shoves inspiration down your throat until you gag or give in.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's a movie as warm and fuzzy as a comfortable blanket, and as safe as the milk Edwards prefers to anything stronger. Not as exciting, perhaps, but it gets the job done well enough.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Though it aims for heroism, Edwards' story doesn't have a dramatic enough arc to be truly inspirational. It's not about winning, it's an ode to participation, which isn't enough for it to get off the ground.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
A bland underdog fable whose comedy never makes it off the bunny slopes.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Designed for audiences who will throw their weight behind the film's schmaltz and sentimentality. Anyone unwilling to commit to the movie's shamelessness will feel like they've hit the ground headfirst.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
A delightfully feel-good though hopelessly fluffy affair directed by Dexter Fletcher that slaloms around complete hokum thanks to a pair of winning performances.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Eddie the Eagle" leaves viewers buoyed by satisfactions unique to classic come-from-behind stories. Even when it's as ungainly and cravenly audience-pleasing as its protagonist, it soars.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
By the end, even though you know what's going to happen, you might feel like cheering. He's an unlikely eagle, but just for a moment, he flies.