released in a number of countries in 2001 and played at various gay and lesbian film festivals worldwide. The Broken Hearts Club grossed $272,536 outside of the United States, bringing its worldwide gross to $2,019,121. Critical response The movie review website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 64% approval rating, based on 28 reviews, with an average score of 6.03/10. The site's consensus states that the film "often feels like an amalgam of 70s sitcoms – though a hunky lead and a sweet central romance provide soapy delights". According to Metacritic, the film has scored 51% based on 17 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, praising the film's positivity and "the ordinariness of its characters and what they talk about." Ebert noted that "instead of angst, Freudian analysis, despair and self-hate, the new generation sounds like the cast of a sitcom, trading laugh lines and fuzzy truisms." CNN's Paul Clinton also lauded The Broken Hearts Club for focusing on "the universal themes of romance, acceptance and family", as opposed to AIDS, coming out, and sex. Clinton viewed the film as "reminiscent of those classic films that explored the complex dynamics of friendship", calling it "a heartwarming, glorious movie for anyone who has ever had a friend – or a family." Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly called it "a majority oriented movie that assumes sophisticated familiarity with a sexual minority". Jami Bernard from Daily News commented "It's the first mainstream gay movie that feels totally comfortable in its shoes". Desmond Ryan from Philadelphia Inquirer described the film as having an "undemanding and reassuring amiability that made it a crowd-pleaser at Sundance." On the other hand, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle felt the characters were "boring" and "uninteresting". Bob Longino of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution summarized the movie as "sometimes funny, sometimes a yawn". The film was often compared to the 1970s film The Boys in the Band, directed by William Friedkin, although Ebert and LaSalle both felt that The Broken Hearts Club was generally more upbeat and optimistic. Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly exclaimed that the film shows "how far homosexual characters have come since The Boys in the Band, sad AIDS dramas, and cute identity peekaboo sitcoms". Longino, however, commented that "Broken Hearts doesn't break much new ground. Actually, The Boys in the Band did the groundbreaking 30 years ago."