Hey guys,
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missingink — 18 years ago(March 08, 2008 04:02 AM)
First, I agree with a lot of what you said - life is choppy and messy. That made a lot of the movie work for me. But there were things that had the opposite effect:
- HCJ was great for the part, IMO, except for the pressure he put on her to be physical. The whole time you got the feeling that he was just waiting to jump her bones. That said, the scenes where he showed his kind/tender side, especially the one with the abandoned little boy. really got me.
- Sandra Bullock was too smart for this role. But if we'd had someone dumber, the character would have been much more difficult to sympathize with. I don't think marital problems (someone mentioned earlier) make people smarter, wiser hopefully, but not smarter.
- The 'love scene' between Justin and Birdee. Yuck. Well he finally got what he was after. She was obviously not ready for that and it had a negative emotional impact on her (and her daughter). It would have been so much more beautiful to me if he had been the gentlemanly sort and more concerned about her feelings, knowing what she was going through. Ditto for the moves he made on her in the truck. The movie did a terrible job of developing Birdee's feelings for Justin, IMO.
Jena Rowlands stole the show, the mother no one would want, but the grandmother everyone adores. The father's part was sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. A lot of people were bothered by Bernice - I thought that was well done and very realistic. Kids see things differently than adults and I really felt for the kids in this movie.
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patricialeat — 17 years ago(April 26, 2008 08:57 PM)
Well said! From the time Grandma died until the time Bill drove away was heartbreaking, and I thought the writing and acting was beautiful. How Birdee, on the day of her mother's funeral had to deal with her husband asking for a divorce while listening to his contempt for her and love for he friend to Birdee watching Berniece try to escape, patiently watching until she wore herself out. I was choked up.
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zsillyz — 17 years ago(May 20, 2008 10:01 PM)
I loved this movie, from start to finish.
The death of the mother/grandmother ends up revealing a scene that is one of the memorable ones for me. When she is standing in the closet trying to find something to wear and she grabs the dress and smells it. There is something about the smelling that gets to me. I had a nightgown I kept of my grandmothers to take out and remember her smell with until it faded.
someone else mentioned the dance with the father. Dealing with alzheimers - you live for those little moments of recognition.
I just truly loved this movie so it is hard for me to say anything bad about it. -
horrorfanaticgirl — 17 years ago(June 07, 2008 09:48 AM)
I think H.C. Jr was miscast and really didn't look that attractive in this movie.don't get me wrong I absolutely think he is 9/10, but in this movie it looked like he was either hung over or had no sleep during the entire movie. Plus, the two just didn't have the chemistry needed, seemed more like it would be a fling between the two.
The patient's screaming disturbing me, performed removal of vocal chords. ~Zombie Holocaust -
DeuxLumieres — 17 years ago(July 19, 2008 09:59 AM)
I still think the confrontation between Bill and Birdie was so disappointing. You wait through the whole movie to see how she's gonna demolish him, and THAT was the best she had? Weakly pointing out that she is the better person? She seemed so pathetic! And he still got the last word in.
"Would you like to see a long arm, Otis?" -
thenYES — 16 years ago(April 05, 2010 12:53 AM)
- Harry Connick Jnr. Don't get me wrong, I think he's goodlooking etc but his part was very very odd. He just seemed like a 'special' stalker who just wanted to jump Sandra Bullock. I didn't feel any love between them, just an intense school-crush on his side. He didn't seem like he'd be able to care for her family.
I can't take anything Harry Connick Jr. is in seriously. The only time he hasn't creeped me out to the point of ruining my opinion of a story was when he was in Will and Grace. Other than that, he's justweird. He's good looking, but something about him is justoff.
"And then he started cheatingespecially at magnetic travel scrabble."
- Harry Connick Jnr. Don't get me wrong, I think he's goodlooking etc but his part was very very odd. He just seemed like a 'special' stalker who just wanted to jump Sandra Bullock. I didn't feel any love between them, just an intense school-crush on his side. He didn't seem like he'd be able to care for her family.
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dikayakoshka — 10 years ago(June 25, 2015 10:36 AM)
Two things bothered me about this movie, and made it less enjoyable than it could've been. The biggest one is the relationship between Justin and Birdee. When the two talked, the film did allude somewhat, to the fact that they were close when they were kidsand seemingly life-long friends. He was her first "kiss", though it was when they were very young I guess, because she freaked when he stuck his tongue in her mouth, and she thought he was an epileptic. The film did try to let the audience know that they had a real history, but I (and seemingly a lot of viewers) never felt that when they were adults. I think the very first scene when Justin came over was what did it. Birdee was so against seeing him, which in reality might be very realistic. I have a couple guy friends that I was extremely close to platonically, (even though I knew they wanted more) and always kept in the friend zone so as not to ruin it. A few years pass, I go through a hard time, got older, gained a little weight and just didn't look or feel like my fabulous self, and I just don't want to see my old guy friends. This might have been the way Birdee felt, but it seemed more like he was an annoyance to her in the past. The feelings being portrayed just didn't work for a movie, even if in reality, this is exactly how it could've happened. I don't know, but I think it might've worked better if she had been happy to see him, despite the fact that she was a mess, and then we immediately would have known that they were extremely close as children/teens. That way, his pushing himself on her a bit hard at times wouldn't have seemed so forced, and I think the whole movie would've been less awkward.
The other problem with the movie was the Travis situation. Too much to talk about, but yeah, they tried to deal with it when he and Justin talked, but the whole thing just seemed wrong. At the end, here's Birdee and ex fighting, Bernice running after dad, later, Birdee and Bernice in bed talking, the scene in the morning when Bernice is watching Birdee from the window while she feeds the ducks, and no Travis. Never once is there a scene with Birdee and Travis where she tells him everything is going to be okay. I honestly cared more about that little boy than the rest of the movie. One 30 second scene of Birdee tucking him in, or walking both Bernice and Travis to school hand-in-hand, or even him standing beside Bernice when she's looking out the window, would have let the audience know that Birdee accepted him and would care for him. Instead, after the swing scene, we never see him again. I didn't care that his mom wasn't around, but somewhere near the end, some sort of relationship between him and Birdee should have been there. I liked this movie, but whenever I watch it, I find myself trying to justify things, and make excuses for other things, which tells me that things were edited out, or just not developed well. The movie really could've been much better.