Benjamin "Benny" Pearl and his mentally ill sister Juniper ("Joon") live together following the deaths of their parents.

Joon joins a poker game at a friend's house and loses a bet that commits Sam, the eccentric cousin of Benny's buddy Mike, to live with the Pearls.

A lawsuit later ensued with Winona Ryder, who was dating Johnny Depp at the time and was slated to play Joon after Dern quit.

[7] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "The story wants to be about love, but is also about madness, and somehow it weaves the two together with a charm that would probably not be quite so easy in real life.

"[8] Owen Gleiberman gave the film a grade of "B", saying "the movie is full of absurdist fripperies we're meant to find magically funny; mostly they're just cute (Sam cooking up grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron, a poker game in which a snorkel mask and baseball tickets are used as stakes).

But Benny and Joon succeeds in remaining blithe and sunny, directed by Jeremiah Chechik (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) with a commercial liveliness and a suitable sense of the absurd.

Mr. Quinn, often in the position of playing straight man to the other two leads, still makes Benny a touchingly sincere and sympathetic figure.

[10]On Rotten Tomatoes, Benny & Joon holds an approval rating of 76% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 5.80/10.

We are told that Joon experiences auditory hallucinations, does well with a stable routine, and takes medication on a daily basis.

She uses the last housekeeper's surname ("Smail") to refer to anyone who might fill the position, which is how Sam (Johnny Depp) enters her life.

While the film addresses such issues as noncompliance with medication and disputes over independent living arrangements, the bad times are never too severe or long-lasting.

[17] Reviewers Mick Martin and Marsha Porter remarked "[Although] most viewers will enjoy this bittersweet comedy ... Folks coping with mental illness in real life will be offended by yet another film in which the problem is sanitized and trivialized".

[18] A stage musical adaptation of the movie premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California, from September 2 to October 22, 2017.

The Paper Mill production featured Claybourne Elder as Benny, Hannah Elless as Joon and Bryce Pinkham as Sam.