Blue Like Jazz

Name: Blue Like Jazz
Director: Steve Taylor
Released: 2012

Steve Taylor

2012

Synopsis

A young man must find his own way as his Southern Baptist roots don't seem to be acceptable at his new liberal arts college.

Your Movie Library

Cast

Recommendations

83
The A.V. Club
For all its low-key charms, the coming-of-age story risks being too Christian for secular audiences and too secular and colorful for Christian audiences: Like its spiritual seeker of a protagonist, it's caught between worlds.
63
Slant Magazine
Blue Like Jazz charts a typical existential coming-of-age tale, yet remains atypical by being hip while also treating religion fairly.
63
Washington Post
Without being parodistic, it manages to poke fun at the air of privilege and strenuous political correctness common to lefty, liberal arts schools, while retaining a certain affection for their heartfelt quirks.
50
Variety
Remains as tame in its presentation as its target audience would expect. Students drink beers on occasion, but no one is shown having sex, taking mind-altering substances or using language that would jeopardize a PG-13 rating. On the plus side, the film also abstains from any overt message-mongering.
50
Village Voice
One only has so much patience, though, for watching Communion-wafer-thin characters caught in a liberal-arts cartoon.
50
Boston Globe
It does give believers and those tottering on the edge something to chew on, and it steadfastly refuses to demonize everybody else.
42
Portland Oregonian
The potential for an interesting story is high. Unfortunately, Miller's autobiographical tale, as told in Blue Like Jazz, squanders this potential by failing to take place in a recognizably real world.
40
The New York Times
Through it all Mr. Allman, who played the skeevy Tommy on "True Blood," is a pleasant presence but blank. And Don's crisis of faith, which should be the movie's core and engine, is never really convincing. It's spelled out but dramatically inert, lost among the yuks of the Reed kookiness.