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"The Counselor" is a movie with sex on the brain, but nowhere else. 

It opens with Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz in bed together after what is supposed to be a marathon lovemaking session, but director Ridley Scott films the first part of this scene so that they are totally covered by white sheets, as if they were mummies. The sepulchral feeling this image evokes only increases when he goes under those covers and we see them reciting Cormac McCarthy 's gaudy, stiff, pretentious dialogue. Thus what might seem like a surefire thing, a love scene between two of the most charismatic and attractive actors in movies today, turns into something odd, distant and vaguely embarrassing.

This is a movie that does not seem overly interested in its own plot, which involves a drug deal gone bad. What it is interested in, unfortunately, is lots of inert scenes in which McCarthy allows his characters to pontificate at length about Big Issues like death, love, money, despair, family and many other things. McCarthy is one of our most acclaimed American novelists, and though he has written some original screenplays over the years, "The Counselor" is the first one to get produced. What works for him in a novel cannot be said to work for him here.

The dialogue in "The Counselor" might kindly be termed "heightened," or it might unkindly be termed the most self-consciously significant gabbing since the days of Paddy Chayefsky . Javier Bardem , who plays a flamboyantly dressed drug king, is stuck with several lengthy monologues about the mysteries of women that should have been severely cut or dropped entirely. As his self-styled intellectual mistress, Cameron Diaz pouts and struts around looking sultry, sometimes smiling to show off a gold tooth. When she talks about her bloodlust and Bardem tells her that she sounds cold, Diaz replies, "Truth has no temperature."

"The Counselor" slides into full-on unintentional hilarity when Diaz goes to church and tries to vamp a priest in the confessional. "I think that women might make up sexy things to tell you just to make you crazy," she purrs. "Don't you think that's possible?"

The camp-o-meter rises to a " Showgirls " level in the scene where Bardem tells Fassbender about the time that Diaz had sex with his Ferrari, which is accompanied by a flashback of Diaz (or her stunt double) doing a split on the car window and humping it while Bardem sits stunned in his seat. "Don't even think I'm making this up," Bardem says. "You can't make this up!" Poor Fassbender just looks confused, as he does throughout; this is his first really bad performance.

Bardem enjoys himself as much as he can, while Cruz does fine work in the film's worst role, a loyal wife who doesn't seem to know what's going on with her husband. Diaz gives a performance that suggests that English might be her second language, but even the most skilled actress would have huge trouble putting over the lines McCarthy has handed her, particularly her last big speech about the cruel nature of man.

"Life is being in bed with you," Fassbender tells Cruz on the phone. "Everything else is just waiting." This sounds like something an emo teenaged boy would say to his first girlfriend, not the work of one of our most esteemed writers of fiction. Aside from a few odd editing choices, Scott directs this wordy script competently, in a very English way of just pretending not to notice how ludicrous it is and focusing instead on the kind of swanky visuals that might be found in a Bacardi Rum commercial.

The fact that the man who wrote "Blood Meridian," one of the very finest modern novels, is also the man who wrote "The Counselor" is a cause for puzzlement. The film might be a real hoot if everyone had gone over the top, but the actors all seem too awkward and uneasy for that to really happen. It's as if they're all thinking, "Wait, is this script by Cormac McCarthy really as bad as it sounds?" Yes, it is.

Dan Callahan

Dan Callahan is the author of "Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman" and "Vanessa: The Life of Vanessa Redgrave." He has written for "New York Magazine," "Film Comment," "Sight and Sound," "Time Out New York," "The L Magazine," and many other publications. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The Counselor (2013)

Michael Fassbender as The Counselor

Brad Pitt as Westray

Penelope Cruz as Laura

Javier Bardem as Reiner

Cameron Diaz as Malkina

Rosie Perez as Ruth

Goran Višnjić

Bruno Ganz as Diamond Dealer

• Ridley Scott
• Cormac McCarthy

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The counselor: film review.

Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz lead an all-star cast for Cormac McCarthy's screenwriting debut.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Despite its scaldingly hot cast and formidable writer/director combination, The Counselor is simply not a very likable or gratifying film. In fact, it’s a bummer. Set mostly within a certain elite, mostly American adjunct to the corrosive Mexican drug trade, Cormac McCarthy ‘s first original screenplay features some trademark bizarre violence and puts some elevated and eloquent words into the mouths of some deeply disreputable figures. The main characters may be twisted but they’re not very interesting and, crucially, you can guess, as well as dread, what’s coming from very early on. The stars, exotic sex and creative violence will draw an audience looking for classy cheap thrills, but widespread disappointment will yield less impressive box-office numbers than such an illustrious package would ideally generate, at least domestically.

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A pretty tasty talk-and-sex scene played by Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz within a cocoon of white sheets gets things off to a good start, but there’s not much more where that came from in this sordid cautionary tale that warns that this is no country even for beautiful people. It’s the sort of queasy yarn in which you just know that the love-struck exchange between Fassbender’s Counselor and his beautiful sweetheart — “I want to love you until I die.” “Me first.” — will be turned from a beautiful sentiment into a doom-laden prediction with a short deadline.

The Bottom Line A beautiful bummer.

PHOTOS: Ridley Scott’s Life and Work

Unlike No Country for Old Men , the Coen brothers McCarthy adaptation that hit the cinematic jackpot artistically and commercially, there are no cops or otherwise ordinary folks at the center of things here (except perhaps for Cruz’s Laura, who is not much seen). Instead, there’s a bunch of wealthy weirdos, bright and colorful people who either never had or subsequently discarded the morality gene. Like the pet cheetahs so admired by Cameron Diaz ‘s elaborate and depraved Malkina, who has tattooed her body with leopard-like spots, these people live to hunt and hunt to kill.

The Counselor, who goes by no other name, has clearly done very well over the years with his client Reiner ( Javier Bardem ), a spiky-haired, big-spirited soul who enjoys a lavishly vulgar lifestyle with Malkina, who sports a ring as big as a grapefruit and lives to push the sexual envelope. Her idea of a good time is to go to confession, even though she isn’t Catholic, just to outrage the priest with details of her wild activities, which might include an interlude we see of her doing the splits and gyrating on the windshield of Reiner’s Bentley while he watches from the seat; she’s disappointed when he doesn’t get turned on, as he deems the display “too gynecological to be sexy.”

The Counselor drives a Bentley too (in fact, the film is embarrassingly overloaded with high-end product placement) and he travels to Amsterdam just to buy Laura an expensive diamond ring, so he’s obviously doing just fine. However, despite an explicit warning about the risks from Reiner, the Counselor wants in on a very large upcoming drug deal, probably imagining that he’ll retire from the game with Laura thereafter.

Early on, Reiner asks the Counselor if he knows what a bolito is, then describes it as a wind-up wire device that’s extremely effective at slicing people’s necks. You just know you’re going to see this thing in action before it’s all over, and it’s not the only wire-as-weapon McCarthy and Scott fetishistically employ in the numerous violent passages, so much so that there’s actually a character named Wireman.

Also involved as some sort of middleman in the big deal going down is Westray ( Brad Pitt ), who even more explicitly than Reiner advises the Counselor not to get involved. Inadvertently, however, he gets sucked in when he does a favor on the outside for a hard-bitten prisoner ( Rosie Perez , very good). Just when it wasn’t certain that McCarthy’s vision of the world could get much darker, here he explicitly imperils his hero-by-default via the positive action of doing a good deed. Although this is not a mystery story per se, in the end it really becomes an issue of who’s going to be the last one standing.

PHOTOS: Outtakes From Michael Fassbender’s THR Cover Shoot

The trouble is, it’s no fun — not even dirty, sordid, delicious fun. This being a Ridley Scott film, the images are always fabulous to behold ( Dariusz Wolski , who shot Prometheus and is now doing Exodus with the director, was the luxuriant cinematographer), but here they are employed mainly to show off the lifestyle — locations, vehicles, clothes, jewelry, makeup, haircuts; it’s a like two-hour commercial for a no-limit credit card. The nominal lead is no more knowable than his name and there’s little Fassbender can add to the character other than to become progressively more sweaty and desperate in the manner of so many old film noir heroes stuck in a spider’s web.

As far as dazzling villains are concerned, the third time is not the charm for Bardem, after his unforgettable turns in No Country for Old Men and Skyfall ; Reiner seems only dissolute and beyond caring, not ravenously evil, his Brian Grazer- ish hair and loud wardrobe remaining his most defining emblems. Pitt’s ambiguous outsider, who, like the Counselor, seems to be clearing an escape path for himself, has a way with words that’s passably entertaining, while Diaz’s Malkina is like the Madonna or Lady Gaga of the criminal underworld, an edge-pusher with a bent for calculated shocks, a woman with a perennial advantage based on her no-rules mindset.

What one is left with is a very bleak ending and an only slightly less depressing sense of the waste of a lot of fine talent both behind and in front of the camera.

Production: Fox 2000 Pictures, Scott Free, Nick Wechsler, Chockstone Pictures Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Sam Spruell, Toby Kebbell, Edgar Ramirez, Ruben Blades, Natalie Dormer, Goran Visnjic Director: Ridley Scott Screenwriter: Cormac McCarthy Producers: Ridley Scott, Nick Wechsler, Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz Executive producers: Cormac McCarthy, Mark Huffam, Michael Schaefer, Michael Costigan Director of photography: Dariusz Wolski Production designer: Arthur Max Costume designer: Janty Yates Editor: Pietro Scalia Music: Daniel Pemberton

Rated R, 113 minutes

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The Counselor Reviews

Just as he's done in many of his novels, McCarthy's first screenplay follows his stylized, almost mythically cynicism with unwavering detachment and insight.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 22, 2022

McCarthy is ambitious in his first original screenplay,(...) in the end (...) [it] could even be too verbose for a critical audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 9, 2021

Even if it's sometimes bumbling and inexplicable - it's never not totally captivating.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2021

Some will find it a head scratcher, others will be drawn into its uncompromising look at life and death, cartel style.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

Anything but subtle - and also not very inventive.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Dec 3, 2020

It's an imperfectly glorious film that is flawlessly written, impeccably acted, and impossible to forget.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 5, 2020

The Counselor is chock full of talent...Despite this, the movie ends up leaving the viewer feeling empty. There are some nicely staged scenes, but the script is just full of rambling dialog.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2020

You continually feel like right here, this very moment, is where things are going to change, where the film begins living up to its potential. Instead, however, you find yourself waiting for something that never comes.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 8, 2020

Disappointing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2020

The Counselor is a colossal waste of (mostly) talented pretty people, revealed as mere puppets to over baked material, and perhaps evidence that great prose does not always translate into great screenplays.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2019

The Counselor is a horrifying reminder that even the best of us are capable of bad, bad things.

Full Review | Original Score: F | Aug 27, 2019

The Counselor has too much dialogue and too many stars all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Full Review | Aug 7, 2019

It's a convoluted mess that is more dull than intriguing.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Apr 9, 2019

Undoubtedly a film peppered with flaws that blows hot and cold from one scene to the next, but despite its many bizarre eccentricities, it still manages to hang together -- just.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 6, 2019

The filmmakers seem to have been going for both, but despite their great cast, the characters aren't allowed sufficient breathing room for us to believe in them enough to care.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 25, 2019

In any event, for a movie with Oscar potential, I can only describe it as disappointing.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 3, 2018

I get the feeling that everyone involved was too revering of [Cormac] McCarthy's work to change it ...

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/10 | Nov 1, 2018

So, Ridley Scott, when your film asked me, in its deepest sincerity: 'Have you been bad?' The answer is yes, Counselor, you sure have.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/10 | Oct 12, 2018

Time and again, I groaned inside at the awkward, writerly dialogue unconvincingly uttered by a talented cast, most of them at a loss to make the dialogue sound like human conversation.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

Do Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy have teenage sons they want to impress? Is that why they have put together this ludicrous fantasy, almost entirely cobbled together from other, better movies?

Full Review | Aug 10, 2018

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The counselor, common sense media reviewers.

Gripping, violent drama about dangers of the drug trade.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

While there's some positive messages about love ov

Penelope Cruz plays a girlfriend who loves purely

An overwhelming sense of dread runs throughout the

The movie starts with a scene depicting oral sex;

Plenty of profanity, including "s--t," "ass," "son

Apple products are visible, as are Ferrari, Porsch

Lots of social drinking, usually hard liquor. The

Parents need to know that this dark, fairly compelling drama featuring a star-studded cast -- Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz -- is best for the oldest of teens and adults, who won't likely be overwhelmed by the bleakness and graphic violence in it. Some sex scenes, though not…

Positive Messages

While there's some positive messages about love overcoming greed, the overall tone is dark and depressing.

Positive Role Models

Penelope Cruz plays a girlfriend who loves purely and give of herself freely. Everyone else is a mixed bag, but most are involved in the drug trade and treading a morally suspect path.

Violence & Scariness

An overwhelming sense of dread runs throughout the film. A few characters are beheaded in nasty ways, their headless bodies shown. A dead body is seen shoved in a oil drum. Gunfights, sometimes at close range, lead to many deaths and the bodies are shown bloody and mangled, up close. A woman is abducted and a man is shown hitting her. Characters discuss in detail how people are tortured and killed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The movie starts with a scene depicting oral sex; there's no genitalia visible, but there's a man's head between a woman's legs and it's clear what's happening. In another scene, a woman is shown taking off her underwear and rubbing against a car, to climax.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Plenty of profanity, including "s--t," "ass," "son-of-a-bitch," "damn," hell," "p---y", and lots of uses of "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Apple products are visible, as are Ferrari, Porsche, Yamaha, and Ford vehicles. Maalox is used.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Lots of social drinking, usually hard liquor. The film is about a drug deal gone awry so characters are shown smuggling cocaine. A character mentions needing Oxy-Contin.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this dark, fairly compelling drama featuring a star-studded cast -- Brad Pitt , Michael Fassbender , Penelope Cruz , Javier Bardem , Cameron Diaz -- is best for the oldest of teens and adults, who won't likely be overwhelmed by the bleakness and graphic violence in it. Some sex scenes, though not showing genitalia, are fairly graphic in setup, depicting couples having oral sex and, in one scene, a fetishistic act. Characters swear often ("bitch" and "f--k"). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Great cast, everything else- bad!

What's the story.

The titular, and unnamed, Counselor ( Michael Fassbender ) in this sleek, savage action drama is tired of staying in his lane. Defending criminals who've landed in jail, wrongfully or not, won't cut it anymore, not when he's in love with a beautiful, sweet woman, Laura ( Penelope Cruz ), with whom he wants to have a happily, and gorgeous, ever after. But his would-be partner in the drug trade, nightclub owner Reiner ( Javier Bardem ), warns him that no matter how dangerous one imagines it to be, it's even more dangerous. There are no codes of conduct. There are no laws of engagement. Reiner's girlfriend, Malkina ( Cameron Diaz ), seems to know a thing or two about that danger. Reiner's former associate, Westray ( Brad Pitt ), who knows how dirty and destructive the business can get, issues his own admonitions, too. But the Counselor won't change his mind. He has just bought a near-flawless diamond for Laura; he envisions a bigger life; and he wants in, and then quickly out. But as he soon discovers, the cost of doing business this way is high -- very high.

Is It Any Good?

Ridley Scott is a stylish director, and he swabs a glossy sheen over THE COUNSELOR that he then systematically destroys once he's in too deep. It's a punishing process that leaves the audience at the edge of their seats, but exhausted and a little confused, too. Crowded with personalities large and quite possibly deranged, The Counselor attacks the senses like a well-timed hit, but the comedown is harsh. Scott's a master at creating an overwhelming sense of foreboding, especially when violence is just around the corner, but it's nearly unrelenting and, as a result, fatigues. Without room to breathe, the audience can't appreciate the artistry.

Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the screenplay, lives in a bleak, depressing world, and draws fascinating, complicated characters that make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. But his Counselor seems oddly naive for a lawyer who works in a challenging profession -- how many warnings does he need? -- and the dialogue, though displaying a wit and intelligence few scripts possess, seems better on paper than said and heard out loud. (They're spoken like finely honed paragraphs.) Also, we get too many hints of what lies ahead, as if Scott wanted to make sure we were paying attention. In the end, we are left with too many questions, one of which is central to the story: Why did the Counselor stray from his usual path? And this: Do we care enough to puzzle it out?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Parents can talk about the motivation of the main character. Why would he want to delve into criminal activity? How is the audience supposed to react to his choices?

Talk about how the film portrays the price of being involved in drug trafficking. Does the movie glamorize it?

Movie Details

• In theaters : October 25, 2013
• On DVD or streaming : February 11, 2014
• Cast : Brad Pitt , Cameron Diaz , Javier Bardem , Michael Fassbender , Penelope Cruz
• Director : Ridley Scott
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 111 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : graphic violence, some grisly images, strong sexual content and language
• Last updated : January 2, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The Counsellor – review | Mark Kermode

Watching on a mobile? Click here to see the video

Having long failed to bring Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian to the screen ("it would have been rated double-X"), Ridley Scott settles for second prize with this self-consciously overcooked existential thriller in which McCarthy proves that while he may be a matchless author, screenwriting is not his forte. Peopled with the kind of endlessly soliloquising drug dealers whom even Quentin Tarantino would give a wide berth, The Counsellor gets an A-list cast to recite B-movie dialogue with C-minus results. All spiced up with brief interludes of U-for-unclassified excess featuring robotic garrotes, high-speed decapitations and Cameron Diaz having sex with a windscreen while Javier Bardem compares her genitals to the mouth of a scum-sucking catfish. Really.

Michael Fassbender is the nameless straight who makes a once-only decision to get into bed with a Mexican drug-trafficking cartel and spends the rest of the movie regretting it. He's not the only one. While the script piddles endlessly around the cod-philosophical implications of living with bad choices, the stars are left to outdo each other in the shocking wardrobe department; Bardem's vomit-hued shirt offsetting a permatan face and Milo from Tweenies spikey 'fro; Brad Pitt as the Midnight Cowboy 's stetson-sporting brother from another mullet; Diaz dressed as a cheetah (she gets to do a long speech about what it "means" to be a cheetah).

Much time is taken up discussing the nature of evil in a manner so datedly naff that when snuff movies rear their ridiculous head you find yourself longing for the Nietzschean heft of Nic Cage in Joel Schumacher's 8mm . Fassbender does his best to hold it all together, chewing a toothpick to unconvincingly hardboiled effect before descending into snot-bubbling desperation and grief. At which point, we get a long soliloquy about the price, value and "meaning" of grief. Blah bloody blah.

• The Observer
• Cormac McCarthy
• Ridley Scott
• Cameron Diaz
• Javier Bardem
• Michael Fassbender

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THE COUNSELOR Review

The Counselor review. Matt reviews Ridley Scott's The Counselor starring Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt.

In his crime thriller No Country for Old Men , author Cormac McCarthy ’s prose is taut, tense, and doesn’t waste a word.  Unfortunately, his literary style doesn’t translate well to his script for The Counselor or Ridley Scott ’s direction.  The film is ostensibly in the same vein as an unforgiving, ruthless crime flick where greedy people get in over their heads, innocents get caught in the crossfire, and only the most ruthless thrive.  This vibrancy fades in and out through the picture, but it’s usually overshadowed by forced, awkward monologues that cut the tension in favor indulgent pontification and dime store philosophy.

The Counselor (a character without a real name and played by Michael Fassbender ) has decided to get married to his beautiful, innocent girlfriend Laura ( Penelope Cruz ).  However, for mysterious reasons, he’s decided to get greedy and cut in on a deal with his drug lord client, Reiner ( Javier Bardem sporting a distracting hairdo).  Even with Reiner’s cold, calculating girlfriend Malkina (Cameron Diaz) clearly plotting at the edges, the Counselor believes his drug deal for $20 million should be no problem, so naturally the deal falls apart and he gets in over his head.

Until everything goes to hell, the Counselor is cool, calm, and collected.  Fassbender wears a big, shit-eating grin on his face as other characters dole out philosophy, anecdotes, and thinly veiled metaphors.  When the Counselor goes to buy an engagement ring for Laura, the jeweler ( Bruno Ganz ) explains the details of the stone but the film may as well shout, “Of course he’s not talking about the finer points of jewelry!  He’s relaying subtext and foreshadowing!  LISTEN UP.”  The movie does dance around the notion of a Counselor as a priest for the avaricious as he listens to various confessions or diatribes, but he’s mostly just a handsome sounding board.

Sometimes what the characters have to say is worth hearing, but it’s mostly dependent on the actor to push past the strained dialogue.  Brad Pitt , who plays a savvy middleman in the drug deal, lets pearls of wisdom and anecdotes about snuff films languidly roll of his tongue.  He finds a way to breathe life into a shallow character, but most of his co-stars fail to match him.  Fassbender’s tremendous range is wasted as the Counselor quickly goes from confident to a sniveling mess, and even though another character points out the Counselor’s thin-skin, it still makes for a bland arc until the he’s pushed to the brink.

The most bizarre performance from Diaz, and it highlights the worst aspects of the script and the direction.  While Scott deserves some credit for trying to make Diaz play against type, the character is too much of a cartoon to be taken seriously.  Malkina owns cheetahs and her tattoos look like cheetah spots.  It’s fine that the film doesn’t try to hide her predatory nature, but the exaggerated nature of her character, Reiner’s hairstyle, and the rest of the picture creates a collection of caricatures operating inside what’s presented as an unforgiving moral landscape.

Scott seems confused at the direction he should take the film.  Sometimes he wants to play to the insanity and will set up crazy moments like a decapitation wire, throw in a disturbing device called a “bolito”, and give new meaning to the word “catfish”.  But then he’ll step back and try to provide a counterbalance where characters can go on awkward monologues without any interference.  And with this freedom, the words lack any naturalism.  The speaker finishes talking and we expect the listener to respond, “So what’s that from?”

The Counselor is somehow both over-the-top and muted.  It’s a movie where everyone down to a Juarez bartender has kernels of “wisdom”, but rarely does anyone saying something worthwhile or insightful.  “The truth has no temperature” Malkina tells Reiner early in the movie.  It’s a line that at first listen seems deep and thoughtful, but then you realize it’s utter bullshit.  Some truths are frigid and uncaring, and other truths can send someone into a fiery rage.  The line “the truth has no temperature” is either a gussied up tautology (“it is what it is”) or the equally vapid “everything is relative” (except that statement…and that one…and that one…to infinity).  For all of its theatrics, The Counselor is mostly hollow words in a hollow world.

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Ebiri: The Counselor Is Star-Studded, But It’s Really Cormac McCarthy Who Plays Every Role

Can a movie be both a catastrophe and strangely compelling — maybe even, gasp, good  — at the same time? It seems The Counselor is determined to find out. On the surface, this new Ridley Scott thriller, written by No Country for Old Men novelist Cormac McCarthy, is a narrative wipeout: a supposedly twisty-turny crime drama set along the border that isn’t all that twisty or turny but is deeply convoluted, and at times howlingly insane. But it knows it makes no sense. In fact, it rubs our faces in it.

The movie opens with the Counselor (Michael Fassbender), whose name we never learn, and his lady love Laura (Penélope Cruz) in bed, making love. “Tell me something sexy,” he says. “I want you to put your hands up my dress,” she whispers. “But you’re not wearing a dress.” “What does that have to do with it?” Their exchange, shot in warm, intimate close-ups, feels both frivolous and portentous. After he does the deed, she sighs, “You’ve ruined me.” She doesn’t know how right she is. At any rate, a movie that begins with an extended sexual climax has got more than just Grishamite shenanigans on its mind.

And boy, does it. Nonsensical story lines aren’t always movie-killers. The Big Sleep is a masterpiece, but neither director Howard Hawks nor author Raymond Chandler reportedly knew what the hell happened in it; the story took a backseat to the impressively hard-boiled dialogue, to the smoldering chemistry between Bogart and Bacall. The Counselor can’t come near such heights, but it’s got something similar going on. There’s some kind of plot here, about a drug deal gone wrong and a shipment gone missing, but every scene turns on observations about life, death, women, violence. The movie forsakes story; instead, it’s all emotional through-line and color. A visit to an Amsterdam jeweler becomes a discourse on how we seek imperfections in diamonds, as a way to “announce to the darkness that we will not be diminished by the brevity of our lives.” When the Counselor meets with his partner in crime, shady nightclub impresario Reiner (crazy hair aficionado Javier Bardem, sporting a Brian Grazer do), the conversation veers toward women and about how “you can do anything to them except bore them.” When our hero later meets with Westray (Brad Pitt), a middleman in the drug business, they talk about how the world is all shit and the need to walk away from it. At one point, Ruben Blades shows up to tell us that “when you cease to exist, the world that you have created will also cease to exist.” It’s as if Cormac McCarthy isn’t just the writer, but he’s cast himself in every part, too.

Actually, that only applies to the men. The women are mostly saints or whores here. Laura is the good Catholic and angelic love object, and that opening scene between Cruz and Fassbender places the movie in the right context. He is desperately, foolishly, hopelessly in love with her, and everything he does is motivated by his all-consuming obsession to give her a good life. On the flipside, we’ve got Malkina (Cameron Diaz), Reiner’s exotic, scheming, cheetah-obsessed mistress, who lacks any sense of self-reflection or empathy. While Laura gets a loving, intimate fingering from a very present Fassbender, Malkina, in one flashback that we’ll all be talking about for years, fucks a car as Bardem watches. (I’m not making this up; it’s a scene you could insert into a South Park episode without any extra embellishments.) “You see something like that, it changes you,” Reiner says, with a hint of disgust; nevertheless, he’s smitten, too. I’d probably be more troubled by the film’s treatment of women if it made any pretense to realism, but these are clearly just opposing forces inside the writer’s head. And they have a certain power, too. The film never loses focus on the Counselor’s love for Laura, and that carries us well through the story’s senseless byways and alleyways.

So, what the hell do we make of this movie? I worry that The Counselor is a monster that we created. By “we,” I mean not just critics, but all of us who ask that such movies be about more than just the ins and outs of their respective plots. How many times have I said things like, “The movie isn’t really about [insert description of ostensible story line] but really about [insert grand philosophical subject here … the way that men think of fear, or love, or yada yada yada]”? The Counselor calls our bluff, and delivers the subtext on a blood-soaked, star-studded platter. Still, it shows us things — obscene and hilarious, yes, but also just as often harrowing and unforgettable — we never thought we’d see. It’s ridiculous, but it has a ragged nobility all its own.

• movie review
• the counselor
• cormac mccarthy
• ridley scott

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Film Review: ‘The Counselor’

Cormac McCarthy's first original script is nearly all dialogue, but it’s a lousy story, ineptly constructed and rendered far too difficult to follow.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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The trailers for Ridley Scott ’s “ The Counselor ” make it look like the kind of gonzo crime thriller his brother Tony used to make. Au contraire, this Cormac McCarthy -scripted potboiler turns out to be a chillingly detached, borderline-sociopathic account of how getting mixed up in a Mexican drug deal can ruin the lives of all involved. (Hint: It’s a good way to wind up pickled in septic barrels or headless in a landfill.) What might have made a mean, sinewy indie thriller escalates in budget, but not necessarily excitement, as Scott and an appallingly miscast group of A-list stars fumble their way through thickets of dense philosophical dialogue, alienating audiences who would’ve happily settled for a more conventional genre movie.

Capitalizing on the love Hollywood has shown him with its adaptations of “No Country for Old Men,” “The Road” and “All the Pretty Horses,” McCarthy decided to stray from his comfort zone of terse, no-nonsense novels to try his hand at screenwriting, cooking up a globe-spanning doozy with roots just south of the Rio Grande border. The title — a perverse lawyer joke, considering that the counselor in question spends all his time seeking advice from others — refers to the pic’s protagonist, a typically by-the-book Texas attorney (Michael Fassbender) who, his back against the metaphorical wall, decides just this once to openly violate the law.

Whatever his strengths in print, McCarthy clearly doesn’t understand how drama and suspense work onscreen, pouring most of his efforts into crafting impenetrably baroque conversations between loosely sketched stereotypes, wrongheadedly convinced that confusion and a growing sense of dread are sufficient to keep us riveted. We first meet Fassbender’s character in bed, where his sexual chemistry with soon-to-be-fiancee Laura (Penelope Cruz) is presumed reason enough to hope the couple lives to screw another day. Meanwhile, everything else in the film points to just the opposite: that this lawyer has already crossed a moral line, sealing both of their fates — and those of everyone else he touches — in a kind of Faustian bargain.

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McCarthy unveils a splintered web of associates, some direct, some one or two degrees removed, but all involved in what should have been a simple scheme to transform a few thousand dollars into $20 million by investing in a cocaine scam. Simple schemes have a way of getting awfully complicated when the screenwriter responsible decides to obfuscate the basics (drugs are stashed in a septic truck, driven across the Tex-Mex border, recovered in El Paso and then sent to Chicago to be sold on the streets), focusing instead on the ruthless obstacles that lie in his characters’ path.

The counselor — whom McCarthy never gives a proper name, nor a proper personality — merely wants to settle his debts, then settle down with Laura. This much we know about him: He’s devilishly handsome, 100% devoted and dangerously naive, getting mixed up with all manner of psychos without suspecting that those relationships might come back to haunt him. Can he trust pretty-boy middleman Westray  (Brad Pitt, effectively playing the grown-up, sobered-up version of his “True Romance” stoner-philosopher)? And what about Reiner (Javier Bardem), who runs a nightclub business as a half-assed front for his shadier dealings?

Having previously played McCarthy’s most iconic character, the cattle gun-toting hitman Anton Chigurh, Bardem tackles a more flamboyant role here as this Versace-wearing cross between coked-up Robert Downey Jr. and spastic Christopher Walken. Though everything here serves to echo the for-shame philosophical monologue at the end of “No Country for Old Men” — in which crime has grown crueler, impervious to any law, on earth or in heaven — the entire story serves to illustrate the inexorable consequences of casting one’s lot with those who have no respect for life.

It’s written as tragedy, but enacted with such cold indifference that one is left reeling from the experience, which Scott has directed elegantly enough to feel like a feature-length advert for the criminal lifestyle, rather than a condemnation of same. Everyone in “The Counselor” comes decked out in designer clothes of some sort. For Fassbender and Cruz, it’s Armani. Bardem’s flashiest accessory is his g.f., Malkina (Cameron Diaz), who sports a gold tooth, silver fingernails and a full-back cheetah tattoo.

Malkina may look like mere arm candy, but she’s not to be underestimated. In fact, those who bother to unpack McCarthy’s unnecessarily obtuse script will find that she’s actually the mastermind behind most of the mayhem in “The Counselor” — a ruthless bitch whose veins no doubt course with liquid nitrogen. Malkina eavesdrops on Reiner’s conversations and discreetly calls the shots behind the scenes that result in several decapitations, that grisly means of death favored by Mexican cartel capos.

In an early scene, Reiner happens to mention something called a “bolito,” a mechanical device consisting of a loop of steel and a self-powered motor that tightens gradually until the unlucky wearer loses his head. As with Chekhov’s gun, one doesn’t bring up such a weapon without intending to use it before the show’s over. Although McCarthy’s script leaves so much else to the imagination, it figures that Scott (who also brought us the sight of Anthony Hopkins serving brains from Ray Liotta’s open-capped cranium in “Hannibal”) would insist on indulging such a spectacle.

That, as audiences have no doubt already heard, is but one of several indelible images “The Counselor” bequeaths upon a public undeserving of such punishment. Sure to become the most notorious — joining Sharon Stone’s “Basic Instinct” interrogation and the “Wild Things” pool scene in the pantheon of bad-movie golden moments — is a sequence in which Diaz mounts the hood of Bardem’s yellow Ferrari, complete with sound effects.

With the exception of Bruno Ganz as an Amsterdam diamond dealer and “Breaking Bad’s” Dean Norris as an over-curious drug buyer, none of the other actor-to-part pairings feel right in this film. (Such recognizable pros as Rosie Perez, Edgar Ramirez and John Leguizamo, uncredited, all distract in roles better suited to unfamiliar faces.) But Diaz is by far the most committed to an impossible character, wearing that same unnaturally menacing expression Kristin Scott Thomas did in “Only God Forgives”earlier this year, as if dying to acknowledge the role’s camp potential.

In helming, Scott makes minimal use of music or flashy camerawork (two ways in which the film couldn’t be less like a Tony Scott picture), content to let McCarthy’s words take the fore, lest his own contributions distract. The script is nearly all dialogue, including several eloquent spoken passages toward the end, but it’s a lousy story, ineptly constructed and rendered far too difficult to follow. The film doesn’t end so much as stop.

Some might argue that “The Counselor” demands a second viewing, though the first is too unpleasant to recommend, even in a so-bad-it’s-good context. The industry is too often intimidated by intellect, and this project bears all the signs of perfectly smart, talented people putting their faith in a rotten piece of material simply because it bore McCarthy’s name. When the dust settles, heads are gonna roll, and it won’t be a pretty sight.

Reviewed at Fox Studios, Century City, Calif., Oct. 22, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 113 MIN. 

• Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a Fox 2000 Pictures presentation of a Scott Free/Nick Wechsler/Chockstone Pictures production, made in association with TSG Entertainment, Ingenious Media. Produced by Ridley Scott, Wechsler, Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz. Executive producers, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Huffam, Michael Schaefer, Michael Costigan.
• Crew: Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay, Cormac McCarthy. Camera (color, widescreen), Dariusz Wolski; editor, Pietro Scalia; music, Daniel Pemberton; music supervisor, Pietro Scalia; production designer, Arthur Max; supervising art director, Marc Homes; art directors, Ben Munro, Alex Cameron; set decorator, Sonja Klaus; costume designer, Janty Yates; sound (Dolby Stereo/Datasat), Simon Hayes; supervising sound editor/sound designer, Oliver Tarney; re-recording mixers, Chris Burdon, Doug Cooper; senior visual effects supervisor, Richard Stammers; visual effects supervisor, Charley Henley; visual effects producer, Philip Greenlow; visual effects, MPC; stunt coordinator, Rob Inch; line producer, Mary Richards; associate producer, Teresa Kelly; assistant director, Max Keene; casting, Nina Gold, Avy Kaufman.
• With: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Sam Spruell, Toby Kebbell, Edgar Ramirez, Ruben Blades, Natalie Dormer, Goran Visnjic, John Leguizamo. (English, Spanish dialogue)

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‘The Counselor’ movie review: A talky movie that isn’t as tough as it thinks

By the looks of it, " The Counselor ," a rancid, ultimately sodden crime thriller, was made to appeal to several audiences, among them fans of the cinematic stylings of Ridley Scott; acolytes of cult author Cormac McCarthy; and admirers of the Irish actor Michael Fassbender, who between the 2011 drama " Shame " and the opening sequence of this movie, has become Hollywood's go-to-sex-guy for explicit between-the-sheets adventures.

In that naughty, teasingly graphic scene with Penelope Cruz, “The Counselor,” which Scott directed from a screenplay by McCarthy, supposedly lays its cards on the table: This is a movie that will pull no punches when it comes to sex (and, later, violence), but will instead confront viewers with frank, uncomfortably straightforward portrayals of the darkest parts of human nature.

Sadly, the filmmakers then dispense with any shreds of honesty they may have once aspired to by cutting to a shot of Cameron Diaz, gorgeous in magic-hour amber light, riding a horse while a cheetah runs alongside behind her. As Malkina, the silver-clawed, gold-saber-toothed femme fatale (who, in case you missed the subtext, also has a string of leopard-like spots tattooed down her back), Diaz is just one of the tawdry characters who populate the south Texas nether-world of “The Counselor,” a sewage-soaked demimonde that is as confusing as it is spiritually compromised.

It seems that Fassbender's title character — attorney at large to all manner of lowlifes — is in the midst of a shady deal involving Malkina's boyfriend, Reiner (Javier Bardem), and a shadowy figure named Westray (Brad Pitt). Just what the deal is and how it all goes horribly wrong, it seems, are so tiresome — and their moral universe so much more richly limned in " Breaking Bad " — that McCarthy felt it necessary to gussy it up with windy, Shakespearian speeches, wearying conversational dead ends and lots of gratuitous swipes at female sexual appetites, which are clearly a source of enduring and unresolved anxiety for the poor guy.

Isn't McCarthy — author of " No Country for Old Men " and " The Road " — supposed to be the master of macho toughness and spare stylistic control? You wouldn't know it from this self-consciously nasty piece of borderland noir, in which his familiar tropes by now look hackneyed and pathetic. "The Counselor" treats viewers to at least two baroquely staged beheadings and countless courtly disquisitions on morality, mortality, regret and heaven knows what else. It's an actor's paradise, all this poetic, run-on musing, but it results in a movie that, despite its strenuous efforts to appear hardened and sexy and sleek, is unforgivably phony, talky and dull.

It may be that " No Country for Old Men " was the perfect marriage of mannerisms: McCarthy's pseudo-depth and the Coen brothers' reliably deadpan delivery system. With Scott's more florid hand at the helm, the weaknesses and excesses stand out in sharp relief, never more so than when the miscast Diaz delivers her carefully practiced arias to predation and Darwinian lust. "The Counselor" must have looked great on paper, but you can't believe a word of it.

R. At area theaters. Contains graphic violence, some grisly images, strong sexual content and profanity. 117 minutes.

The Counselor

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

When an indisputably great author like Cormac McCarthy ( Blood Meridian, The Road ) writes his first original screenplay, attention must be paid. When that screenplay turns out to be as clunky as The Counselor , “forgive and forget” are the words that come to mind. Pulitzer Prize winner McCarthy, 80, has earned his place in the writing pantheon. The Coen brothers shaped his No Country for Old Men into a Best Picture Oscar winner in 2007 by meshing McCarthy’s words and their vision with spare, thrilling exactitude.

No such discipline exists in The Counselor , a droning meditation on capitalism in the form of a thriller about cocaine trading on the Tex-Mex border. Director Ridley Scott gets in some fierce action in the film’s final third. But the emphasis on talk leaves the words no room to breathe, much less resonate.

McCarthy’s name has attracted a starry cast of chatterboxes. Michael Fassbender plays the title role; no one calls him anything but “Counselor.” He naively signs on to expedite the importing of cocaine from Colombia to Chicago in a septic-tank truck. His reason for breaking bad? The girl of his dreams (Penélope Cruz). In the opening scene, they talk dirty to each other. “You have the most luscious pussy in all of Christendom,” he says. “Oh, God,” she says. A religious allegory? Let’s hope so. As eroticism, it’s, um, unconvincing.

The Counselor is soon in over his head. Westray, a middleman played by a bemused Brad Pitt, sets him straight: “You think you can live in this world and not be a part of it?” Guess not. When the deal goes bad, a panicked Counselor turns to the fixer Reiner (Javier Bardem) to save him from cartel vengeance. But Reiner has his own problems. He and his lady Malkina (Cameron Diaz) enjoy letting two cheetahs run wild in the desert to (symbol alert) hunt prey.

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Reiner recounts a long, descriptive story about how Malkina once fucked his Ferrari. Then the film shows her doing it. “It was too gynecological to be sexy,” says Reiner. I agree.

The rest of the movie piles on beatings, killings and grisly decapitations punctuated by conversations about morality. Oddly, the published screenplay – while far from McCarthy’s top-drawer – reads better than it plays. What’s onscreen recalls a line from No Country : “It’s a mess, ain’t it, Sheriff?”

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Movie Review: The Counselor (2013)

• Dan Gunderman
• Movie Reviews
• No responses
• --> October 31, 2013

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If ever you were looking for a movie where every day, conversational dialogue is turned into a form of deep, philosophical lecturing, then stop your search now, The Counselor is it. What you’ll also find is it’s a fresh, innovative, suspenseful film that, while suffering at times from a slow, disjointed tempo, has an intriguing message about the pitfalls of greed in the modern age.

It takes place in a restive, unnerving Texas where the cartels dominate more than Jerry Jones’ bank account. ‘The Counselor’ (Michael Fassbender, “ Prometheus ”) has hastily ventured into the drug game, working with a middleman named Westray (Brad Pitt, “ World War Z ”) and a lavish club owner, Reiner (Javier Bardem, “ Skyfall ”), to seal a $20 million deal. As luck, or rather bad luck would have it, things do not go as planned and ‘The Counselor,’ through no fault of his own, becomes the target of some very unhappy Latino drug dealers.

And when Latino drug dealers are not happy, people die.

Lucky for them (and fans of sadism) there are plenty of people to butcher. Stabbings, shootings and breakings find a happy home in this dirty, unpredictable world penned by Cormac McCarthy in his first official screenwriting attempt (many of his novels, including “ No Country for Old Men ,” have been adapted to film). ‘The Counselor,’ bounding around to Boise, Chicago and London, does everything in his power to keep himself and his naïve, high-cost fiancée, Laura (Penélope Cruz, “ To Rome with Love ”) from being included in that company. Hidden agendas, double-crosses and seduction hamper his attempt.

In the role of this pompously flawed man who is so in love that he has made some really terrible decisions, Fassbender is marvelous. There is more to this passionate guy than meets the eye and Fassbender manages to delve so far into his role that it’s hard to discern character from actor. Javier Bardem — with his porcupine spiked hairdo — proves to be compelling as well and serves as a veritable machine for quotable one-liners. The fear he ultimately displays of his frisky, cheetah-spot tattooed girlfriend, Malkina (Cameron Diaz, “ What to Expect When You’re Expecting ”), is something that helps to define the tone of the movie and drive it forward.

Where director Ridley Scott (“ American Gangster ”) wants The Counselor to go sometimes gets lost, though. The auteur wants nothing more than to confuse the audience, leaving them questioning everything and everyone every step of the way. To this, he succeeds with the out of sync plot chronology, the tight framing of his shots and the use of Daniel Pemberton’s music to jolt the viewer unexpectedly. When minute 117 comes around, however, he could have tied up a few more loose ends and offered an explanation or two without his vision getting compromised.

That quibble aside, The Counselor delivers the best weighted dose of suspense and thrills of the year. It may not be Scott’s or McCarthy’s best work but as Westray says to ‘The Counselor’ during one of many complex discourses “It’ll rip out your liver and feed it to the dogs.” In many ways, The Counselor does just that.

Tagged: drugs , lawyer , murder

Dan is an author, film critic and media professional. He is a former staff writer for the N.Y. Daily News, where he served as a film/TV reviewer with a "Top Critic" designation on Rotten Tomatoes. His debut historical fiction novel, "Synod," was published by an independent press in Jan. 2018, receiving praise among indie book reviewers. His research interests include English, military and political history.

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Stormy Daniels concludes her testimony as Trump trial continues

‘beacon of inspiration’: beloved akron guidance counselor murdered; son charged.

AKRON , Ohio (WJW) — Police are investigating the murder of a beloved school guidance counselor.

Akron police say Courtney Jones-Hunter, 59, and her 74-year-old husband were stabbed multiple times inside a home in the Goodyear Heights neighborhood Wednesday night.

Son stabs two people, kills mother: local police

Jones-Hunter was a guidance counselor at East Community Learning Center. She passed away from her injuries, and her husband, the suspect’s step-father, is hospitalized.

Jones-Hunter’s 40-year-old son, Alex Andrew, was taken into custody right after the incident. He faces charges of murder and felonious assault.

“It appears that the suspect assaulted the victims with a knife and later called 911 to report the incident,” Akron Cpt. Michael Miller. “Detectives are working to understand more about the circumstances that contributed to the tragedy.”

Akron City Schools issued a statement saying Jones-Hunter will be remembered as a beacon of support and inspiration.

I-TEAM exclusive: Cleveland safety advisor resigns

“Courtney has left an indelible mark at APS and East; we will deeply feel this loss,” it went on to say. “During her tenure at East CLC, Courtney touched the lives of countless young scholars. She committed herself to their well-being and encouraged them always.  Courtney’s compassion and kindness resonated throughout our school community; we will remember her as a beacon of support and inspiration.”

Courtney Jones-Hunter statement Download

Counselors will be available for students or staff.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.

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'Black Twitter' docuseries celebrates the online community with real-world impact

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A FAFSA Fiasco Has Students Still Asking: Which College Can They Afford?

The new application for federal tuition aid was meant to be simpler. High school seniors say it has been anything but, and some are still unsure of their plans after graduation.

By Colbi Edmonds and Bernard Mokam

Colbi Edmonds and Bernard Mokam interviewed dozens of students, counselors and experts for this article.

By this time of year, college-bound high school seniors are usually celebrating their choices, researching dorms and even thinking of their majors. This year, that’s not necessarily the case.

Because of a disastrous rollout of the new application for federal tuition aid, many still don’t know how much tuition they would be paying and so have not decided where they can afford to go.

The Education Department’s redesigned form for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, was supposed to make applying for tuition aid easier and more accessible. But faced with a bureaucratic mess caused by technical meltdowns and severe delays in processing information and receiving aid packages, students say the new system has been anything but clear or streamlined.

The first signs of trouble began in December with the form’s release and have cascaded since, creating uncertainties for students — with graduation right around the corner.

“It’s been a nightmare from point A to point B,” said Reyna Atkinson, a 17-year-old from Michigan, who ultimately committed to Michigan State University after months of waiting.

FAFSA is a free, standardized application for federal aid for college tuition that millions rely on. Students fill out one form, with details on their background and household income, to request tuition information for the schools they list.

Before the overhaul, applicants typically received their financial aid packages within 72 hours of submission. But this year, the Education Department has to reprocess more than half a million applications , and students have been waiting for two, three months — and counting.

Students typically must commit to a college by May 1. Some colleges have extended their decision days until May 15 or early June because of the FAFSA problems.

Even so, several students interviewed by The New York Times said they were making decisions without getting a full picture of tuition costs, a move financial aid experts discourage. Others said they couldn’t commit without knowing how much their chosen college would cost.

Kenneth Seinshin, a 17-year-old from New York City who hopes to be the first in his family to go to college, started filling out his application the first week it came out. But it took months to troubleshoot the glitches he encountered; he finally submitted in March.

So far, he has received only one aid package, for Union College in New York, and he has yet to make a decision. “The whole process just really stressed me out,” Kenneth said.

Clover Schwalm, an 18-year-old from Michigan, was in a similar situation. As a disabled and transgender student, she wanted a school with an accessible and inclusive environment. She still hasn’t received all of her packages, including from schools of higher priority like Savannah College of Art and Design, but committed to Arizona State.

She said she has “reservations” about moving to Arizona, but was comforted by the fact that it doesn’t have a ban on transgender care for adults. “It’s not the best, but I also recognize that there are states that could be less safe,” she said.

Simply completing the application has been a frustrating task for many. Some have not been able to save their changes or make corrections, while others could not submit their form at all.

So far this year, there has been a noticeable dip in the number of students who have completed the form, compared with last year. Among high schoolers graduating this year, 35.6 percent had completed financial aid applications through April 26, compared with 48.2 percent in the same period for the previous class, data analysis by the National College Attainment Network shows.

“The data on FAFSA completion takes a bad story and makes it even worse,” said Bill DeBaun, a senior director at NCAN, which tracks FAFSA applications.

Reyna, the Michigan student, submitted her FAFSA form in January, but it wasn’t processed until late March. She was accepted to several schools, but the FAFSA system wouldn’t let her add them to her application, so she gave up on trying to get financial aid from them.

Ava James, 17, from California, faced different, but still frustrating, hurdles. When she tried to add her mother’s first name, Janice Cheryl, the system could not process the double name. She eventually figured it out, but then the system prematurely submitted the form without her signature. It took her six weeks to fix it.

Another wrinkle has been the form’s convoluted language.

Vanessa Farris, a counselor for the Ayers Foundation Trust in McMinnville, Tenn., said several of her students tripped over one particular question:

“Are the student’s parents unwilling to provide their information, but the student doesn’t have an unusual circumstance, such as those listed in question 7, that prevents them from contacting the parents or obtaining their information?”

“Such a little thing, but it has a cost,” Ms. Farris said. Several students provided wrong answers, and they were not able to amend their mistake for months.

The debacle affects some more than others. Agnes Cesare, a college counselor at U.C.L.A. Community School, said she was worried about its effects on students from low-income families or racial minority groups — the ones the new form was meant to help.

Ms. Cesare said that because of the arduous process, some students at her school had decided to pursue an associate degree and save up for a bachelor’s later. But she worries that once they are out of high school, they may not get the help they need to transfer to a four-year school.

“It feels like the roadblocks are insurmountable” for those students, Ms. Cesare said.

The process has been especially difficult for students with undocumented parents. The new system asks parents for their Social Security numbers, which undocumented people don’t have.

That was the case for Elizabeth Templos-Galindo, a 17-year-old in Tennessee, and her parents. They called the Education Department for assistance but were put on hold for five hours before learning of other forms of identification her parents could submit.

Education Department officials have acknowledged the glitches, and on a recent call with reporters, the deputy secretary of education, Cindy Marten, said they had been “working tirelessly to resolve those issues.” Officials added that students were now able to make corrections to their forms and that updated financial records were being sent to schools. Last month, the department announced that the leader of the Federal Student Aid office, Richard Cordray, would step down.

While FAFSA is used by every school in the country, a small group of institutions — a lot of them private and elite schools with a larger endowment and more students from wealthier backgrounds — also uses the College Scholarship Service Profile, a financial aid application administered by the College Board.

The CSS profile costs $25 per application, and schools that use it provide aid estimates using a different formula. Because that form didn’t have a bevy of glitches, students received estimates more quickly from CSS-affiliated schools than ones that use FAFSA.

Owen Keller, 18, from Maine, can speak to that. He filled out both FAFSA and CSS forms in December, and received tuition details from CSS-affiliated schools like Bowdoin College well before his first FAFSA package arrived in late April. Owen decided on Bowdoin even before receiving all of his packages.

The FAFSA blunder has made some reconsider their plans.

Yajaira Vargas, 18, from Reno, Nev., wants to study political science and become an immigration lawyer. She got into her top choice, the University of Nevada, Reno, but wasn’t able to apply for aid until May.

Now, she is considering not going to college immediately and taking a gap year. “But I don’t want to do that,” she said.

Universities are also feeling the stress of the FAFSA disaster, said Christopher Murr, assistant vice president for financial aid and scholarships at Texas State University.

“I know the U.S. Department of Education is doing their best at this point,” Dr. Murr said, “but it seems every couple of days there’s a new wrinkle, a new challenge that we have to adapt to.”

Experts are worried things may get worse this summer, when this debacle could collide with the “summer melt”: a period when students who took all the necessary steps to go to college, including putting down a deposit, decide not to enroll by fall semester.

Because of that, Mr. DeBaun said June 30 was seen as a crucial milestone, when the school year ends and high school students will no longer get access to counseling.

“Will we be able to connect students with the assistance they need to finish the process out?” he asked.

Alan Blinder contributed reporting.

Colbi Edmonds writes about the environment, education and infrastructure. More about Colbi Edmonds