"Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, commending the film for being "emotionally truthful, painfully funny and vibrantly alive" and labeling it "a near-perfect road movie". Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" believed that "Much of the dialogue is so quirky it sounds overheard instead of scripted" and called the cast "correspondingly spontaneous". "New York" magazine's chief film critic David Edelstein praised Hynes' "talent for deadpan jaw-droppers that aren't self-consciously quirky", and thought that "In "The Go-Getter", filmmaking itself feels like Manifest Destiny." Todd McCarthy, writing for "Variety", was impressed by Pucci's performance and Shah's cinematography, calling the film "an unusually fresh-feeling indie with a nice sense of style". Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" wrote that "The Go-Getter" "breathes new life [...] into the overworked indie road-movie formula", labeling Pucci as "charming" and the cinematography as "unusually nice". The "New York Press"s Mark Peikert thought that Deschanel made the film's flaws "almost forgivable", and that the film was "a feature-length audition reel for Deschanel to finally get the roles she deserves". "New York Daily News" critic Elizabeth Weitzman called Pucci "one of the best, and most overlooked, young actors around" and giving the film 4 out of 5 stars.