The TV Set.

"A producer and director of a show as good and as mishandled as the short-loved cult classic Freaks and Geeks can speak with some authority on the madness that is the network pilot season," writes Matt Singer at IFC News. "And so writer/director Jake Kasdan does in his funny and insightful comedy The TV Set, a movie short on huge laughs but long on authenticity and insight."

"Kasdan, [David] Duchovny, [Sigourney] Weaver, and also Judy Greer, as Mike's endlessly non-reassuring manager, keep things buoyant, but ultimately, not much is at stake in The TV Set." At indieWIRE, Michael Koresky finds it "glides along like a particularly superficial yet adept episode of The Larry Sanders Show."

Updated through 4/9.

"The TV Set is part of a long and pretty glorious tradition that includes The Player, Sunset Boulevard, S.O.B. and The Big Picture," notes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "Which is to say it isn't particularly cheerful or optimistic, but it rings satisfyingly true."

"[A]t its best, The TV Set is wry and true about the messy tangle of art, commerce, and family, as talented creative types try to stay true to themselves and put food on the table," writes Scott Foundas in the Voice.

Somewhat related: Sigourney Weaver tells the New York Observer's Sara Vilkomerson why acting in James Cameron's Avatar is "like going back to Off Broadway."

Earlier: David Edelstein in New York.

Update: Online listening tip. Kasdan on Fresh Air.

Update, 4/5: "Kasdan should have the expertise to write a backstage exposé of the TV industry," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "This one simply isn't funny. I suppose The TV Set is being released on the name recognition of its stars, but they're all miscast and imprisoned by a hackneyed script."

Updates, 4/6: "[I]t might have worked as a pilot in its own right," suggests AO Scott in the New York Times.

"The TV Set is a little wonder of a movie, as smart and sad and true as any comedy I've seen this year," writes Slate's Dana Stevens.

Updates, 4/7: Vadim Rizov at the Reeler: "The best idea here is that of treating TV writing (and creative work in general) as a job like any other, one where interference from higher-ups and compromises are swallowed down in the name of feeding the wife and kids. Most insider-ish Hollywood comedies blow up the bruises of artistic battle to epic stature; The TV Set's greatest achievement may be marginalizing the importance of its own subject."

Marcy Dermansky notes that the film "wants to give an insider's view of what happens behind the scenes of a television pilot, much like what Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration attempted to do for the movie industry last fall. Both get some laughs, both score some points; neither film is particularly illuminating or funny."

Updates, 4/9: "Kasdan is shrewd and funny about such things as the ease with which powerful people can mimic, when they need to, the forms of sincerity and concern," writes David Denby in the New Yorker. "The satire is unrelenting but not too broad; it stays close to common observation."

"The TV Set is at its best when its characters are at their worst," writes Erik Davis at Cinematical. "If you thought the folks on your favorite reality show were pathetic, wait until you meet those who fought to put it on the air."

Posted by dwhudson at April 4, 2007 6:18 AM