All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Average User Score: 7 (4 sources)

Submit Movie Review

Review this film

Tell the world what you think of Drowning Mona

Your Score:

reset score

Write Your Review:
When writing your review, remember to keep the language clean.

Submit Review Cancel

jimmy_the_pipe

-1

Agree (0)

Disagree (0)

This is a pretty good movie if you give it a chance. It starts out with the most hated woman in a small-town, Mona Dearly, driving her son's car off a cliff. It's quickly established that this car accident was no accident, and almost everyone in...
[+] Read Full Review

This is a pretty good movie if you give it a chance. It starts out with the most hated woman in a small-town, Mona Dearly, driving her son's car off a cliff. It's quickly established that this car accident was no accident, and almost everyone in town had a pretty good motive to want Mona dead. What follows is a hilarious whodunit, that may leave you guessing until the last few minutes. There are a couple of logic gaps, but just suspend your disbelief and enjoy the show.

The cast is pretty good: Casey Affleck, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny DeVito, Will Ferrell (minor role), and Bette Midler as Mona. There are a couple of actors you've probably never heard of before, but they're still funny. Somehow Jamie Lee Curtis comes across as the hottest lady in the film, while Neve Campbell just looks like a country bumpkin. (All though there are a few scenes with her that are side-splitting.)

It's kind-of a low-brow movie, but it's still pretty funny. I'd recommend watching it with family or friends.

[-] Minimize Review

Report Abuse

Posted mar 29, 2008 12:57 pm pt

• [+] Boston Globe
  
  75
  Executed on a pretty broad level, but if characterization is slighted, the ensemble is so rich, with such depth, that every few minutes another juicy turn keeps coming our way to divert us.

  by Jay Carr | Read Full Review »
• [+] Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  
  75
  Scores high on nastiness, but it has as many surprisingly funny moments as offensive ones.

  by Paula Nechak | Read Full Review »
• [+] Baltimore Sun
  
  75
  A murder caper that could have been written by Agatha Christie during a pub-crawl.

  by Ann Hornaday | Read Full Review »
• [+] Mr. Showbiz
  
  71
  Follows a predictable low-comedy path, but does it with such fierce appeal and beautifully wrought wit that it doesn't feel quite like any comedy American theaters have seen since the equally underrated "Grosse Pointe Blank."

  by Michael Atkinson | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Post
  
  63
  Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy.

  by Lou Lumenick | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  60
  With a hilarious script and capable cast, the film puts a clever spin on the everyone-is-a-suspect plot.

  by Kevin Thomas | Read Full Review »
• [+] Miami Herald
  
  50
  Has a made-for-TV smallness (it will probably be a big hit on cable), and it never quite vanquishes the nagging suspicion that you could be spending your time better elsewhere.

  by Rene Rodriguez | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  50
  It can be broadly funny when it does not lapse into lazy "Dukes of Hazzard" caricature, which is often.

  by Gary Thompson | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  50
  The actors more eager to goof around in schlumpfy costumes on a low-budget lark than to play their trashy characters with the seriousness such farce requires.

  by Lisa Schwarzbaum | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  50
  My problem was that I didn't care who killed Mona Dearly, or why, and didn't want to know anyone in town except for Chief Rash and his daughter.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Portland Oregonian
  
  42
  The ensemble actors give it their all, and that's as it should be in an absurdist comedy of this sort.

  by Bob Thomas | Read Full Review »
• [+] Rolling Stone
  
  40
  Tries for deadpan laughs but is merely lifeless.

  by Peter Travers | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  38
  A comedy murder mystery gone seriously astray, boasts an immensely talented cast .

  by Michael Wilmington | Read Full Review »
• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  30
  Each of the characters is dull and boorish instead of witty and urbane.

  by Marjorie Baumgarten | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Examiner
  
  25
  There are enough mullets to win this movie a Stanley Cup.

  by Wesley Morris | Read Full Review »