Ellen (Renee Zellweger) is a hotshot young writer for a New York magazine who is called home by her father George (William Hurt) to look after her mother Kate (Meryl Streep) who's been diagnosed with cancer. Ellen's resentful and incompetent, she idolises her father who's a professor of English and she deals with her mother's domesticity on sufferance.
This is an unusual film for director Carl Franklin who made Devil in a Blue Dress and One False Move, small town domestic drama doesn't seem like his bag at all. But he manages to balance the tearjerking elements of this story with a reality that is ultimately terribly moving. It is about a family coping with the approaching death of the mother, it's about a father's selfishness, but mainly it's about a daughter's growth. It's about children's inability to really understand the workings of their own family and the satisfaction that comes from insight.
Key to the film are the performances of the three main actors Streep, Zellweger and Hurt – and they're all first class. The one element in the film that doesn't work so well is the structure – the story's told in flashback as Ellen is questioned by the police about her mother's death from a morphine overdose.
I related very much to this film.
David's Comments:
David's Comments:
Better than Stepmom in the terminal illness stakes, thanks to interesting characters. The theme, that we don't really know the closest members of our family, is interestingly played out. Streep is fine, as always, and the rest are good too. Intelligent, and an intriguing change of pace for Carl Franklin.
