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

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

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

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 : 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 : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A disturbing drama that twists its outsider-from-hell story into something more unique and unexpected than its marketing campaign might imply.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Nothing here feels cheap or hasty, which is why the horror, when it comes, is all the more chilling and grim. Slick, sharp and terrifying, "The Gift" is a truly brilliant thriller - and, one hopes, the first of many features from Edgerton to come.

Name : Jon Frosch / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Joel Edgerton's feature-length directorial debut is a pleasant - or pleasantly unpleasant - surprise, hitting its genre marks in brisk, unfussy fashion and raising a few hairs on the back of your neck along the way.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
This indie pulse-raiser is more of a stealth shocker than an overt one, even if the twisted payoff is telegraphed to anyone paying attention.

Name : Katharine Pushkar / Alias : New York Daily News
Edgerton seems to have pulled "The Gift" right out of a time capsule from 1992.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"The Gift" stretches things a little too much for it to be a first-rate thriller. Still, among second-rate thrillers, it's one of the best.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
More than anything, Edgerton's script and direction demonstrate a keen understanding of tension and what puts an audience on edge.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
[An] expertly crafted exercise in guilt, ambiguity and revenge.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Edgerton's touch as a director and writer is fluid - he eerily holds our attention, like Hitchcock holds a door for Tippi Hedren.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Clever and atmospheric, the film has enough twists to keep the average viewer guessing.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
It touches on notions of trust, the male ego and forgiveness, but Edgerton doesn't overturn any new stones.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
Underneath it all, "The Gift" is a merciless critique of an amoral corporate culture in which the ends justify the means, and lying and cheating are O.K., as long as they're not found out.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's a confident thriller suffused with dread that builds suspense without breaking until it's too late to turn back - with a few jump scares thrown in for good measure.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
One of the many gifts conferred by The Gift is the unaccustomed pleasure of feeling like putty in the hands of a first-rate storyteller.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
A coolly unsettling thriller that begins as an unironic homage to late-'80s/early-'90s yuppies-in-peril dramas. before taking a turn toward the moral and existential minefield of Michael Haneke's Cache.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Officially, this is a blank-from-hell movie. But Edgerton has remixed the formula.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
A dark and ultimately quite nasty psychological thriller from actor/writer/debut director Joel Edgerton, who manages to yank the carpet out from under his audience a couple of times.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Edgerton isn't above a hoary jump scare or two, but he otherwise tackles his Cape Fear premise with a degree of technical and dramatic intelligence.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
A satisfying directorial debut from writer, producer and actor Joel Edgerton.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The Gift starts out like so many other thrillers before it - with an attractive, well-to-do couple purchasing a big new house - and then beats its own, uniquely tense and twisted path from there.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
At heart this is a three-character chamber piece. And Bateman, Hall and Edgerton are three very interesting actors showcased in a confident directorial debut.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Edgerton - who also wrote The Square and the story for The Rover - exploits Bateman's smarty-pants persona to chilling effect; he's the rare triple threat who's more valuable behind the camera than in front of it.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Just when we think we know where The Gift is going, we're surprised. And then surprised again.

Name : Daisy Bowie-Sell / Alias : Time Out
A darkly unnerving psychological thriller.