I saw Jimmy, I liked it, and I’m giving it a 9/10. That’s the review, before anyone starts quoting Rotten Tomatoes at me.

Aaron Burns’ biopic, from Fathom Entertainment, opened wide on November 6. KJ Apa plays Jimmy Stewart. The official hook covers the stretch of Stewart’s life that starts with his Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, runs through his enlistment as a combat pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II — twenty missions over Europe, up to colonel — and lands on the other side, when he comes home shaken and It’s a Wonderful Life comes calling. Justin Strawhand wrote the script. Stewart’s daughter, Kelly Stewart-Harcourt, is an executive producer. The official company also includes Neal McDonough as Stewart’s father, Max Casella as Frank Capra, Jason Alexander as Louis B. Mayer, Christopher McDonald as Lionel Barrymore, Kara Killmer, Sarah Drew, Rob Riggle, Julian Works, and Jen Lilley as Gloria Stewart. It’s PG-13 and it runs two hours. Burns & Co. and RedTed Media produced it.

I’m not going to invent a scene-by-scene diary or pretend I sat in the dark with a leather notebook. I watched it. I liked it. A 9 isn’t a rubber stamp and it isn’t a shrug. It’s me saying this one got there.

Now the part everybody’s already arguing about, because the early scores are not telling the same story. As of November 12, Rotten Tomatoes has Jimmy at 61% from 33 critic reviews and 95% from 500-plus verified audience ratings. Metacritic has it at a 45 — “mixed or average” — from 10 reviews. That’s a real split, not a rounding error. Glenn Kenny at RogerEbert.com was one of the warmer takes, scoring it 75 and writing that “the actual story, skillfully interweaving two time periods (credit is due to screenwriter Justin Strawhand), is genuinely compelling.” Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle was more middle-of-the-road: “As a movie, ‘Jimmy’ is watchable, and it’s even enjoyable. It’s just not exactly a good biopic — and has problems beyond Apa’s height.” Variety went colder, calling it a “hokey, superficial portrait.” Jesse Hassenger in The Guardian gave it 2 out of 5. That’s them. The 9 is mine.

If you’ve been hearing that Jimmy has a lot of good reviews, the ticket buyers are a big part of that story, and I’m in that camp. Critics are more mixed, and that’s worth knowing before you buy a ticket. The story is slow at times, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I’m still at 9/10.

The Verdict: 9/10