Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
The themes are life and death, but the tone stays breezy.

Name : Mark Matousek / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
How refreshing for a film to stare death in the face and find compassion reflected in its gaze.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
It never lapses into mawkishness, but remains clear-eyed and compassionate. It's not coldly clinical; instead, the characters are treated with grace and respect.

Name : Vadim Rizov / Alias : AV Club
The Farewell Party leaves no doubt as to where it stands on the right to die with dignity when facing terminal illness, but it's so clumsily made that it serves only to exasperate.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
For all its talk of death, The Farewell Party, featuring a terrific ensemble cast, is a story about life. Always honest, graceful and funny it explores with deep compassion its characters familial and romantic relationships.

Name : Abby Garnett / Alias : Village Voice
The Farewell Party makes drama out of right-to-die politics and asserts that just about everyone who makes it past a certain age will have to contend with the issue in one way or another.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
A bittersweet, wryly comic, keenly observed look at senescence from Israeli directors Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It's taking a strong stand on the morality of mercy killing, no doubt, but it also acknowledges the precious glory of life. It's a rare film that can smile while studying suffering.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
I can't recall any film ever making me laugh and cry in complete comic and dramatic balance like "The Farewell Party."

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
For all its sensitivity to the subject, "The Farewell Party" makes a number of tonal missteps .

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The gags in the movie's first half are so unapologetically mordant that I was disappointed to see them dwindle to nothing in the second, as so often happens in stories like this one.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A gentle but pointed work that walks a particular line to create a specific tone, a consistently warm and comic film about an unmistakably serious subject.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The drama falls somewhere on the spectrum between Michael Haneke's devastating Amour and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, but the result is a film that's frank about death without leaving you cold.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
This is straight-up commercial comedy, low-keyed division, and while it can't hold a candle to recent, dark-comic Israeli achievements such as Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," the actors more than save it.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
This first-ever movie take on Peru's furriest export is a cuddly triumph.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Affectionately honoring the everyday quirks of Bond's stories, while subtly updating their middle-class London milieu, King's film may divide loyal Paddingtophiles with its high-stakes caper plot, but their enraptured kids won't care a whit.