Every Audrey Hepburn Movie Ranked Worst To Best
By Ava Barnes
"They All Laughed" is a dangerous thing to call your movie because what if the audience doesn't laugh? If the people on the screen are having more fun than the people in the theater, you don't want to rub it in.
In this case, reports of laughter vary wildly. This is one of the most love-it-or-hate-it films in Audrey Hepburn's repertoire. Variety enjoyed it as a hangout film, with its review saying, "Rarely does a film come along featuring such an extensive array of attractive characters with whom it is simply a pleasure to spend two hours." Vincent Canby over at The New York Times, meanwhile, went directly for the throat, writing, "Any way you look at it — as a comedy, as moviemaking, as a financial investment, 'They All Laughed' is an immodest disaster. It's aggressive in its ineptitude." Low-key, aimless, bittersweet comedies are often divisive, and maybe the best predictor of your opinion of "They All Laughed" is whether or not that description sounds appealing or appalling.
The film's loose plot involves private eyes becoming entangled with the women they're assigned to tail, making a kind of cat's cradle of affairs, infatuations, voyeuristic pleasures, and manipulations, all of which are captured with gentle affection. It's a wry, impressionistic look at love in New York in 1981, a specific taste that's not going to be to everyone's liking — but there's still plenty here to reward interested viewers.
