Alternatively, William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer graded the film as a C+ and described it as "a movie about its teen hero's inability to express his feelings: to himself, to his parents, to his friends and, unfortunately, to the audience". He criticized the "amateurish" cinematography, the "half-hearted attempts at mystery" and the "wooden" cast. Salon.com's Andrew O'Hehir wrote that Paranoid Parks "highly aestheticized and stylized depictions of teenage life sometimes seem as if they were shot through the wrong end of a telescope".
The critics' reviews highlighted the film's focus on a teenager's struggle to communicate his feelings, both within himself and with others. The cinematography, mystery elements, and acting were also subject to criticism by William Arnold and Andrew O'Hehir.