PodBill Just what I expected

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

funkyfry An extraordinarily talented cast gathered for director Phylis Nagy's made for TV crime and punishment opus. The results aren't astounding (like, for example, "Reversal of Fortune"), but it's certainly interesting as a character study.The story begins abruptly; rather than introduce the characters and setting, we are thrust into the primary "crime scene". Jean Harris (Annette Bening) confronts Dr. Herman Tarnower in his home and he urges her to sleep it off. Telling him that she drove 4 hours just to spend a few minutes with him, she produces a revolver and attempts to kill herself. In the process of attempting to stop her, the doctor is severely injured by 3 gunshot wounds. Once the "crime" is out of the way, the film goes back in time to fill us in on the background events that led to these events.My feelings about the film are mixed. The performances are solid, and Kingsley is worth watching in just about anything. He's got a very interesting character here – a total narcissist whose main virtue seems to be the fact that he's so open and honest about it. His crowded room of hunting trophies symbolizes rather blatantly his attitudes about life in general, and women in particular.He's not a very sympathetic character, but no matter how hard the film seems to try I just can't find Jean to be in the "right" here. First of all, I find the depiction of the crime which is shown later in the film based on the prosecution's evidence to be far more likely than the first version we're shown. Even allowing some room for the film to be ambiguous about its goals and giving them credit for showing the prosecution version, I think a number of factors tilt this film strongly in Jean's favor. Basically the film shows Jean as a victim of the doctor, particularly in that it asks us to accept that her depression and violent outburst are the result of her addiction to medication that Dr. Tarnower prescribed for her, and repeatedly reminds us that she took anything and everything he gave her based on faith. The film seems to ask us to hold the doctor responsible for her drug habit, which I find just as unpalatable as her story about the doctor being "accidentally" shot 3 times is untenable. Bening is a fine actress but she can't create pathos where none really belongs. The film is too heavy-handed in asking us to see things from her perspective, even going so far as to basically lampoon the doctor's living relatives and friends who doubt Jean's story and blame her for his death by directing these actors (including Cloris Leachman) in a ridiculous over-the-top manner.This film will hold your attention to the end of its running time, after which point you may feel as I did that you actually wasted your time. That's not to say it's a horrible film, it's just that the story is finally not convincing on a human level because Bening's character is too improbable to generate anything beyond curiosity.

hotfriend1 This is a case of someone speaking as though they saw an entirely different movie. And, I guess, the individual above did."Mrs. Harris" is another solid effort in a long line of memorable HBO movies. But, please, don't take my word for it. Click on the link in the upper left margin of this page, where is says "Awards & Nominations." Is there an Emmy Award that this movie was NOT nominated for? Along with two SAG nominations and a slew of other nominations. I rest my case on that. (No, I don't think it was favoritism.) Two very solid performances by Annette Benning & Sir Ben Kingsley, a strong supporting cast, and a very good script. (Nice soundtrack, too.) Ignore Beavis's drivel and give this one a look.

ldavis-2 Saw this during HBO's free weekend preview. All I can say is that with obnoxious twits like Bill Maher, Bryant Gumbel and Robert Wuhl, HBO needs all the suckers - uh, sorry - subscribers they can get!I don't know how much of "Mrs. Harris" is true, but I couldn't muster anything remotely resembling pity for the woman. If it isn't true, she should go after Phyllis Nagy for this clunker, because she and the Good Doctor here are utterly despicable creatures. Dissing Hy's ("My first Jew!") wandering eye in front of Momma? Oy!Knowing what a truly narcissistic jerk Warren Beatty is (as those who saw his speech at the Oscars a few years back can attest), I understand Annette Bening wanting to do something - anything - to get out of the house! Once, she was on her way to a brilliant career, but, alas, seems to have settled for playing shrill harpies.

triple8 SPOILERS THROUGH:Mrs. Harris, like many movies, has both good and bad aspects to it. I went into this thinking it would either be an extraordinary film or absolutely awful. I was wrong on both guesses. The movie is above average but not great although there are certainly some great elements to it.First the positives. Annette Benning and Ben Kingsley are cast in the main roles. Now just that fact alone will probably encourage some people, who ordinarily wouldn't be interested in this type of film, to give it a viewing. And Benning and Kingsley do not disappoint. Both of them deliver very powerful performances, particularly Benning who in my opinion is one of the top actresses working today. No matter what type of character she plays she always makes you forget she is Annette Benning. And this performance is no different.The combination of Kingsley and Benning together on screen elevates this movie considerably. Both of them are able to play their roles with conviction and believability. The movie and it's two leads, were excellent at showing the relationship from the happy beginning, the problems that came up, and the downward spiral. They were also excellent in really painting a portrait of both these people and tapping into the emotion element of who they were and the red flags that started to come up that were able to show the viewer they were on a collision coarse. Although the movie sometimes seemed made for television in a lifetime channel kind of way, those moments did not last, because Benning and Kingsley were around to prevent that and they were throughly convincing as a screen couple. They never resorted to theatrics and played their roles with a naturalness that one very rarely sees in this type of film.Something else that must be mentioned is the great use of music in the movie. Now a lot of movies have music in them but it's the rare film that can use music in an effective way. That element was done very well here.The "Color my world" scene in particular stood out to me. It's just not often that a movie is that good in knowing what musical selections work that well, and this movie did. Kudos to whoever selected the music.So with the great performances, the great music choices and the photography which was good as well, that's enough to make the movie watchable. Unfortunately it doesn't ever cross the line to being a "Great" movie and that's largely because of the editing, sequences of scenes, and flow of the picture in general.I really thought the editing was rather choppy and think the story would have been told much better without all the flashbacks. The whole thing with the supporting cast talking to the camera has been done in other movies, sometimes done well, most notably in the excellent film "To Die For" where it really worked. But it doesn't work here. We don't see nearly enough of any of the supporting cast and most frustrating was not being able to see either of the two leads interact with almost anybody except each other.I am sure I'm not the only one who would have liked to see more of their relationships with other people and we didn't really get to see that. The editing was off and there was WAY to much retelling of the night of the murder. That DID seem exploitative and after awhile it was like: how many times do they need to show us bullets raining out in the rain soaked night? That was how the movie started(to much to fast if you ask me) and those scenes took away from the film and there was to much time devoted to the same scene.The scene of Ben Kingsley in the locker room was honestly rather strange but I suppose I liked it. It sure was different. Mrs. Harris isn't what I would call a great movie but at times it did have it's moments and probably would have had even more if certain things were fixed a bit. I would call it an above average film that falls short of being great but is definitely worth a look. My vote's 8 of 10.