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Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

lmason2926 The cast looked promising, but I was stunned to read the other comments about this movie. To compare this to Shakespeare would make the Bard spin in his grave. Not only did it not "grow on me" but I found it increasingly painful to view. The pain then turned to laughter as we started realize how stupid this movie actually was with it's predictable dialog and it's made-for-TV feel, straight from the Lifetime channel.The only lessons to be learned here besides always making your socks match your shirt, is that you should never keep incriminating items. The Warrens are one messed up family. So if there is absolutely nothing else on, It's one of those "it's so bad it's good" things. I give it 3 stars!

TxMike No spoilers in this first paragraph. The story is narrated by Tom, who as a young adult is played by Peter berg. But the story begins when he is a young boy, right before dad (Peter Coyote) pulls up stakes out East and moves the family to Washington state to begin a new career. We find out later that it wasn't that simple. After Tom grows up and goes off to school, the story picks up again when he comes back home. Older brother Charley (Vince D'Onofrio) seemed particularly restless, and wanted to leave home, but for some unspoken reason couldn't, saying "It isn't that simple." We suspect some deep, dark secret resides withing him. Juliette Lewis who was only 18 plays little sis Cassie. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Marriet who becomes Tom's new girlfriend after he comes home. My wife and I found the story interesting and the acting good, but were both disappointed at the end. The movie brought many things to light, but with little back story to explain. In the end we were left more puzzled than satisfied.SPOILERS are in the remaining comments.Right before the family moves west we see Charley dancing with local pretty waitress Jennetta (Marg Helgenberger), then taking her outside. Young Tom (about 12 or so) sneaks around the corner to see them close, then brother Charley leaves in a huff. Tom goes to Jennetta to see what is wrong, she takes his head in her hands, and kisses him on the lips. Which he thought was great since he already had an infatuation with her. Then brother Charley comes back for him. Years later in Washington when the house burns down (we later find it was Charley as a way to leave), Tom is left a note with reference to a safe box, Charley had saved all dad's letters from Jennetta so they wouldn't burn, and wanted the two younger brothers to read them. Dad finds out, the boys go to burn the letters, embarrassed, the fire gets out of hand, younger brother Ask (Noah Wyle) chases down burning letters and gets run over, dies, later Charley comes home, the family is one big mess. In the end we see Tom and Marriet heading off to Berkely together. Dad had moved west years earlier as his only way to break off the affair with Jennetta. We never did find out why Charley felt he couldn't leave home.

sl2mail I saw this film recently on cable and found it almost Shakespearean in its depiction of family trouble: fundamental character flaws or weaknesses leading to tragedy, pride keeping the truth from being known when it would be better to bring things out in the open, old secrets coming back to wreak havoc.It's not always an easy film to watch, because you want to stop certain things from happening. But every character is multi-dimensional and real, and - as in Shakespeare - there is humor in the story and hope for recovery and redemption in the end. I cared about these people and their situation.Slow going at times, but give it a chance - it lingers.

guyb I was (pleasantly) surprised how this movie slowly and surely grew on me as I was viewing it. I also was thinking that "this has got to be Canadian; it has that edge." Once I saw the credits, it surely was.