This is my 100th post in this blog. :)
Having been raised in a family of primarily daughters and mothers, the dialogues of this movie are some of the best I have heard in a long time. The scenes between the four daughters and Joan Allen are so natural tha you almost forget that you're watching a movie.
And what a performance by Joan Allen - what a performance!The scenes where she tells the daughters about their father's infidelity and the cheshire cat smile she puts as she imagines decapitating the 50 year old DJ (the director of the movie) sleeping with her 18 year old daughter should have brought the Oscars at her doorstep. Shame.
Watch this movie for her, the so so good Kevin Costner and a brilliant script.
Pity. Terms of Endearment - that had nothing to offer besides Jack Nicholson - with bad cinematography, tardy script, over-the-top and highly self-conscious fare by the leading ladies - should have swept the Oscars and this movie be ignored.
The problem with this movie is taht it wastes its best portion for a cheap tawdry "twist" narrative. Cusack sleepwalks through his cool ordinary guy thing; but I can see him do that till eternity:). The half an hour of Oliver Platt and Cusack together , from the bar to the Christmas dinner to the bar again (Platt's confrontation with the jockey BF was too good!) to the apartment - is good enough to recommend this movie.
The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations. - IMDB
I used that because I really don't know how to describe this tour de force. I might say it's about middle age crisis, our insecurities, adult world, everything. But I think it's really about how we have complicated everything for ourselves and can't even scream - and taht's when we're touching middle age.
The persepctive of the movie comes from people who ae going down under the system - successful in absolute terms - but underachievers in terms of themselves - part of which stems from the fact taht they really don't believe in the sanctity of the system but are too small an weak to do anything about it than fail. Something I can relate to.
Forget her nude scenes, the numero uno reason for the movie's success for many, watch Kate Winslet for her lost Sarah. My only grouse was that Connelly was wasted and Sarah's hubby and the panty thingee was too much of a 2D caricature.
But the Oscars be damned for denying Jackie Haley his due as the sex offender for the not very impressive (to me) Tom Arkins(?) for Little Miss Sunshine. Haley's performance - his watery and hungry eyes - make me do something that not even Lolita could do - empathize with a child molester. Entering midway into the movie - he takes it by the fine hair and chews off the heavy star cast - Right from the pool, the date scene to the scene where his mother dies. His own tragic story had a deep impact on his performance - and that is so evident.
This is a masterpiece - not to be missed.
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