On
Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 59% based on 129 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "With engaging performances marked by an inconsistent tone,
Charlie Bartlett is a mixed bag of clever teen angst comedy and muddled storytelling."
Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score 54 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Stephen Holden of
The New York Times wrote "If the attention span of
Charlie Bartlett didn't wander here and there, the movie might have been a high school satire worthy of comparison with
Alexander Payne's
Election. But as it dashes around and eventually turns soft, it loses its train of thought ... [and] never coalesces into the character-driven, serious comedy with heart that you want it be."
David Wiegand of the
San Francisco Chronicle commented: "The script is adequate, although screenwriter Nash has created one distasteful character after another, and there's barely a ripple of relieving humor in the entire film ... The material might have worked better if the filmmakers had adopted a satirical tone, or even if they'd gone the whole
American Pie route. Instead, the film grinds on with only a few bright moments. The big problem, though, isn't the script but rather the direction and, specifically, the plodding pace of the film. That's surprising, given that first-time director Jon Poll has a background in film editing. It may have something to do with knowing pretty much what will happen from one moment to the next, but you keep wanting Poll and his cast to get on with things, or at least, energize the film some way or another. The tone is often just turgid ... Yet, for all its problems, the film is often sincere, often earnest ... You'll find yourself rooting for the filmmakers in spite of yourself, and, more to the point, in spite of the mistakes they've made." Jonathan Rosenbaum of the
Chicago Reader called the film "a rebellious teen comedy that isn't as good or as radical as
Pump Up the Volume, but still feels like a shot in the arm and is full of irreverent energy." He added, "Despite an ineffectual subplot about the hero's absent father, there are some good satirical riffs here on adult hypocrisies (with Robert Downey Jr. especially good as the beleaguered, alcoholic school principal), a few echoes of the underrated
Mumford, and lots of high spirits." Darrell Hartmann of the
New York Sun said, "John Poll's rebellious-teen comedy falls well below the high bar set by recent genre hits
Juno and
Superbad. An anything-goes kookiness pervades the first half, but the film then takes a trite turn that only serves to highlight its unlikely premise." David Balzer of
Toronto Life, rating it three out of five stars, called it "a cool trip down teen dramedy lane, but one senses the film could be a lot smarter. Bartlett's drug selling, it turns out, is not the main subject of the movie; 'messed-up people' are, and this causes Charlie Bartlett to lean on psychobabble about disaffection that it initially tries so hard to mock. The film's use of
Cat Stevens's anthem from
Harold and Maude, 'If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,' encapsulates its problems; instead of acting as a wry expression of Bartlett's dark philosophy, the song becomes the kind of pat message of self-empowerment that drives teens to Prozac in the first place." ==Home media==