A Million Little Pieces

As a stand-alone work of cinema fiction, "A Million Little Pieces" is an effective blunt instrument of a film - a rough-edged, unvarnished, painfully accurate portrayal of addiction and rehabilitation.

A petulant, boastful, and not very noteworthy variation of a story that plenty of films, documentary and fiction, have told before, but with more insight or panache.

An underwhelming addiction story that feels not just familiar, but more focused on the bad-boy swagger of its main character than his actual recovery.

Yet another ruin-and-rehab tale, one that initially tantalizes then flatly disappoints.

James' inner life and his experience is made up of a million little pieces, but in this flat film we get just one.

Making a recovery movie is like making a boxing movie: The formula is so well established that the most viewers can hope for is a slight variation on a familiar theme.

The Taylor-Johnsons have made a well-meaning version of a story about addiction, but given what we know about James Frey, A Million Little Pieces doesn't feel like enough.

... hampered by its reliance on clichés about addiction and rehabilitation that squander a committed lead performance by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

I'm glad a film like A Million Little Pieces exists because it's a reminder that life with an addiction doesn't have to be hopeless.

If you're a fan of the book it's worth seeing, but the memoir is, unfortunately, a product of its time that's hard to adapt