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Catch and Release

Catch and Release

Comedy · Drama · Romance · 2006

For a grieving fiancée, learning to love again requires the help of her late love's three best friends.

Movie details

Catch and Release

“Life is messy. Love is messier”

2006 Comedy · Drama · Romance 1h 51m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

5.9 / 10

Community rating

For a grieving fiancée, learning to love again requires the help of her late love's three best friends.

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 Catch and Release?

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.

New York, I Love You

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You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

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Author! Author!

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Comedy · 1982

A broadway playwright is burning the candle at both ends. He is dealing with pressure from a production nearing premiere, a wife who is leaving him, and 5 children 4 of which belong to her.

Jersey Girl

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Comedy · 2004

Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.

The Meddler

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With a new iPhone, an apartment near the Grove, and a comfortable bank account left to her by her beloved late husband, Marnie Minervini has happily relocated from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be near her daughter Lori, a successful (but still single) screenwriter, and smother her with motherly love. But when the dozens of texts, unexpected visits, and conversations dominated by unsolicited advice force Lori to draw strict personal boundaries, Marnie finds ways to channel her eternal optimism and forceful generosity to change the lives of others - as well as her own - and find a new purpose in life.

Which Brings Me to You

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Two romantic burnouts, Jane and Will, are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing.

Young Adult

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Comedy · 2011

A divorced writer from the Midwest returns to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who's now married with a family.

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Susannah Grant

Written by

Susannah Grant

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner

Gray Wheeler

Timothy Olyphant

Timothy Olyphant

Fritz Messing

Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith

Sam

Sam Jaeger

Sam Jaeger

Dennis

Juliette Lewis

Juliette Lewis

Maureen Monette

Fiona Shaw

Fiona Shaw

Mrs. Ellen Douglas

J

Joshua Friesen

Mattie

Court is in session

Put Catch and Release 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.