Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

vincentlynch-moonoi We're used to Meryl Streep being brilliant in films. She's probably the preeminent actress of our time. But here (as the mother with cancer) she is upstaged a bit by a wonderful performance by Renée Zellweger. I think what stands out about Zellweger's performance is that it isn't movie-real...it's real-life real. I've seen her in some other flicks and she was good, but here she was stupendous.In terms of the other actors, William Hurt turns in a fine performance as the husband. Tom Everett Scott is fine as the son/brother, as is Nicky Katt as the boyfriend.This is what I generally refer to as an absorbing drama. A mother has cancer. Her husband, a college professor, convinces the daughter to come home from her job as a magazine feature writer in New York City, while the father doesn't fulfill his own responsibilities. The daughter is left to be nurse maid and run the house, while dad simply goes about his everyday life...including having flings with a few students (although this is mostly implied). The mother eventually succumbs, with an autopsy showing the cause of death as an overdose of morpheme. Throughout the film a detective is questioning -- though not accusing -- the daughter about the events leading up to the death. However, this is not a mystery. The detective is just a means by the author/director to tell the story of the life the family was experiencing. This is heart warming in spots, incredibly sad in spots, and just life in other spots...in other words, real life.Highly recommended for the serious film-goer.

gregorybnyc Meryl Streep has played lots of married women in her long and storied career. But none quite as radiant and loving as she does in this outstanding family drama. In fact, I wouldn't have thought this a part for Streep at all (this is Susan Sarandon territory). Streep is the total wife and mother to her English professor husband, and published author (William Hurt), and two adult children who have come home to celebrate their father's 55th birthday. I remember liking this movie a lot when it was first released in theaters. I found a copy of the DVD and bought it and last night watched it. I had an entirely different appreciation for Anna Quinlan's richly observed story of a family in crisis as the result of the mother's suffering from a harrowing illness. This is not a spoiler. You know the mother has cancer from the very first frame. My recollection was that Streep was playing a tightly controlled Martha Stewart-type domestic perfectionist and of course, watching it the second time, I realized nothing could be further from the truth. At first you are lulled into thinking this might be the case. She throws a costume birthday party for her husband and seems ridiculous dressed as an aging Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, complete with ruby red slippers and a toy Toto. When her daughter, played by Renee Zelwegger is in the kitchen with her mother, she finds herself corrected constantly but only because her daughter has rejected her mother's domesticity and in the family home, she is a stranger in a strange land--inept and uninterested. The day after the party, we learn that Streep's character is being kept in the hospital for surgery, and suddenly Dad is insisting that his daughter take leave from her job as a reporter for New York Magazine, and stay home to take care of her ailing mother. Bristling with resentment, she obeys her beloved father's demands, but this sets up the stage for many shifting changes in the family dynamic. Tellingly, the daughter says at upfront that she was never close to her mother, and was the perfect Daddy's little girl. She emulated her father to the point where she also became a writer, and looks to him for approval, which he is rather stingy with and often with backhanded criticisms. Meanwhile, the daughter takes on the chores of running the household while taking on the duties of ministering to her mother. She makes lunch for her mother's club, The Minnie's, a group of the town's women who do lots of beautifying and other civic chores. She arrogantly assumes, it's not big deal to cook, but can't cook a lick and the badly prepared meal lays on the plates, mostly untouched. But her mother's praise for her daughter's effort is genuine and laced with love. As Daddy's feet of clay become more brittle, the mother's non-judgmental behavior and warmth and appreciation for her daughter begins to open the younger woman's eyes to the reality of her parent's marriage. Daddy's probable infidelities, his vanity, his literary snobbishness and willingness to kiss ass of a visiting writer he idolizes, show him to be less of a hero in his daughter's eyes. Worse, she see that he does nothing in the house to help make his wife more comfortable, and he increasingly stays away as her condition deteriorates. The daughter's resentment builds to confrontation that leaves her confused and more angry. There's a telling scene near the end of the movie when Streep confronts her daughter about her anger at her father. It is in this beautifully staged scene with Streep and Zelwegger playing superbly together, that the mother reveals to her daughter that she knows everything her daughter knows about her father. She has made her accommodations because that is what you do in a long marriage. She neither asks for her daughter's sympathy, or the audience's indulgence. She's not one of those embarrassed politician's wives who have been humiliated in public and then made to feel shame for sticking it out. She has created a loving home for her family. The mother in this film simply plays her part--as does her husband in this relationship. Streep is absolutely at her subtle best here, never never sacrificing the dignity of this dying woman. There could have been plenty of opportunity to go for the emotionally-charged big moment, but Streep refuses to ask us to feel sorry for her. She is totally in the moment of this character's situation and she's utterly fabulous. Zelwegger, an often outstanding screen actress who has become a bit mannered and fussy in her recent roles, shows how this character has matured through grief and anger, and as she begins to see just how great a mother she's always had, we share those revelations. William Hurt doesn't flinch from this unlikeable character, and the final revelation is cathartic. He's never been my favorite actor, often taking on roles that are hard to like. But his work is rich in characterization and he never overplays or reaches for a cheap emotional payoff either. The role of the brother is not very detailed here, nor is Zellweger rather caddish boyfriend. It was nice to see the young Lauren Graham, playing Zellweger's best friend--her delightful Lorelai Gilmore persona in chrysalis. In many ways, ONE TRUE THING is a throwback--an absorbing family drama full of words and emotions, a throwback to the era of the "woman's pictures" of the 30s and 40s. The three main characters never lose their focus. A very fine movie, well worth your time.

paumonok Be prepared for a film that deals with parental dying and death and looks closely at how one family handles the ordeal. Meryl Streep gives one of her most outstanding performances as Kate Gulden, the dying wife of a National Book Award-winning professor of English George Gulden (William Hurt) and uber mother of Ellen (Renee Zellweger) and Brian (Tom Everett Scott). The story is from the viewpoint of Ellen, who must bear the brunt of caring for her mother (and father) while coming to terms with the father she once adored.Renee Zellweger gives a great performance as the ambitious magazine writer torn between her desire to advance her career, and her father's need for her to care for her mother as her death approaches. William Hurt does a great job playing the self-absorbed academic who tries to keep his life going as smoothly as when his wife was well.This movie offers an very real portrayal of the forces and dynamics that shape the relationships of a family and community during a time of hardship and ending. I highly recommend this film.

dorisz It is a wonderful movie about the mother and daughter relationship. I think everyone has to see it, cause we can discover the little miracles of our life, and I think we mustn't do that mistake, that we realize that how we love each other, when if it is too late already. So I think it is all that I can say about this movie, but if you are interested in this go and watch it.The love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to us, so enjoy that possibility, that someone is next to you and you know that person loves you. After this feeling we won't need anything else to live a happy and wonderful life.