On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 187 reviews, with an average rating of 6.77/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Charlie Kaufman's ambitious directorial debut occasionally strains to connect, but ultimately provides fascinating insight into a writer's mind." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews". A number of critics have compared it to Federico Fellini's 1963 film "8½".