reiglejim
Some people have a hard time getting through their lives. For multitudinous reasons.This film portrays a very touching and passionate marriage between two pretty unhinged people. Played by great actors, Robin Wright and Sean Penn, who also became spouses, in real life. And the chemistry shows, in a way that romance chemistry rarely does in Hollywood films, sad to say.Then there are the terrific actors James Gandolfini, Harry Dean Stanton, Gena Rowlands, and the charming daughters, etc.And John Travolta actually upped his game for this. He was terrific in a difficult role.Screenplay written by the late great John Cassavetes, and directed well by his son, Nick Cassavetes.I found it to be a bit sentimental, but moving
secondtake
She's So LovelyBeyond Promises, But Not Beyond HopeCassavetes the younger's She's So Lovely is proof there's a culture gap or a perception gap or something out there. Few films get such starkly opposing reactions from ordinary viewers. Worst movie they've ever seen? Wow, I don't agree at all...but the movie is a litmus test, a continental divide, a knife's edge. Sometimes, one aspect to a movie, a single quality, can set off a viewer so they just hate (or more rarely, love) a movie.I'm guilty of tilting against a movie like that--Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was so horrible to me I had to shut my eyes through half of it (and so I can't review it). I really hated it. But I know that there were aspects to the movie that were remarkable. If I did venture a review (I can't imagine trying to see it again for any reason, but let's pretend I did), I would try my best to find those things that did work, and to rise above the gut level repulsion I had for it. Because, in the end, I need to be able to find balance, to appreciate the best in a troubling movie--the filming of Triumph of the Will, for one obvious example. Can She's So Lovely, a movie that has stellar acting, good filming, a plot that holds water (and rain, lots of rain), and strong emotional content, really be terrible? Even if the content grates on the viewer so badly they can't stand watching it? People are reacting against the movie, because it's troubling, depressing, and raw. It has characters with flaws so big you can can't always see their virtues. And that isn't the fault of either of the Cassavetes men, the dad John who wrote the script or the son Nick who retrieved it after his father's death. In family tradition, real life wife and mother Gena Rowlands has an affecting role as a release counselor, and this is curious because John Cassavetes used Rowlands long ago to scuff up stereotypes of mental illness in the difficult and penetrating A Woman under the Influence, among other films. I wonder if people who had trouble watching She's So Lovely would have trouble with the earlier movie? There is another side to seeing a movie that is unbearably emotional or depressing. And that is learning what it is that makes it so for the viewer. For me, why exactly did I find the violence so impossible to watch in The Passion? Was it the violence itself, or the fact that the violence seemed so wrong, or inaccurate, or gratuitous? Would I watch a movie where someone horrible was being tortured that way, say Hitler? (The short answer: no.) The point being, a movie that is so affecting might have something to teach me.And what is it in this Cassavetes film that works the viewer over, for good and bad (there are as many positive reviews as negative ones)? Maybe it is the entry into a very real world that isn't so extreme or unusual--though we are shown an especially awful and pivotal moment in that world--a milieu present in every small city, and common in a big one. We can really feel that scene, and the players inside, and that alone makes the movie compelling. Give us five or so great performances, from the two Penns in love in the first half to John Travolta in the sunny (and shorter) second half, and you have something that really gets under your skin. Isn't that what makes a movie valid? Don't we want intensity over entertainment? Sometimes?Now to the best part: humor. It arrives in small ways throughout, but at the end there is that chaotic comic nonsense in the front yard? It's the worst of all possible situations, a mother willfully walking away from her three kids and decent if goofy husband, but it gets violent in silly spurts as they tussle on the grass. Is that supposed to soften the facts so we don't melt down totally? Or is it saying that the whole film is a little, just a little, tongue and cheek? Surely the excesses earlier might be excessive. I mean, how many dance hall ticket takers are so nice they not only let the couple in for free but loan them money on top of it? Or just after that, does the couple really arrive at an old friend's flat in the middle of the night and have a beautiful family meal prepared for them, an idealized cliché of the Italian mother feeding everyone? Is this movie really about true love or about something mistaken for it, an obsessive attachment, almost an animal bonding where the two of them need each other, even when it's bad for them. Blame the drugs, blame the bad brain chemistry, blame the poverty, they do cling together when they shouldn't. They cling even ten years later, leaving her new husband out of her heart, that convincing suburban dad (Travolta), imperfect and yet successful, who has given his life to her. Would you really prefer stability and superficial happiness over depth of feeling? And true love?I bought the whole package. The direction was flawed, maybe a result of inexperience more than anything. But what really works, really works. For me. I don't want to be them, I'm not jealous in any way, even of their attachments, but I like these for their best parts. And I like the movie for its best parts, too.
bob the moo
Maureen is a bit strung out and pregnant from her low-life husband Eddie. Their lives are an unpredictable mix of actions that mostly involve drinking and scamming round on the fringe of society. When Eddie is "away" for a few days, Marueen falls in drinking with neighbour Kiefer, who tries to rape her but then just beats her. She explains this away to Eddie so as to keep him from going crazy at her or anyone else but when he does start to flip she calls the paramedics to take him into care for his own safety. However when he shoots one of them, Eddie is sentenced to a mental institution. When he comes out he finds that Maureen has divorced him and has moved onto a much more stable and reliable man in the form of Joey, with whom she has had more children.Almost halfway in it becomes evident that this film isn't going to work out that well because, before the "10 years later" jump, the love between the two leads hasn't been established to a convincing degree. Given that the narrative is using this mutual attraction (despite all the negatives) as its lynchpin this is a bit of a problem. Other than establishing that both are unstable and using each other for meaning, the film doesn't do that much for all the time it takes up. The second half isn't that much better as Eddie comes out as a sort of watered down Rainman and disrupts Maureen's new relationship with Joey. The script then asks us to swallow that she still loves Eddie to the point where the mere news that he is released sees her flush the last ten years down the toilet.I can sort of understand what the script was trying to do but it didn't manage to produce anything interest in the aggressive relationships that it paints in the gutter. The characters are where the main failing is. Maureen's character is poorly defined and Wright-Penn doesn't appear to understand what motivates her character and thus turns in a really mixed performance that pushes emotional buttons in each scene but is never consistent. Eddie is OK in the first half of the film as he just seems like a drunk unstable loser but in the second half he is unconvincingly soft. Likewise Penn is strong in the first half but he is unconvincing in the second. Their performances aren't helped by a weird mix of tones – at times a dark love story, at other times a cringingly awful "comedy" complete with "jaunty" music being played over a fight on the front lawn or that horrible scene at Joey's bar. Travolta is a bit better and Stanton is a reasonably nice addition in a small role.Overall this is a shocking mess of a film that spirals downhill from the mid-point onwards. The first half shows potential but doesn't manage to pull off the formative stages of the central relationship and thus fails to set up the second half. However the second half isn't helped by poor development and a terrible mishmash of "comic" moments that simply feel crass and out of place – I suspect even if the first half had been a stormer, this second half would have been poor enough to drag it all under. Even the acting talent seems all at sea and unsure of where they stand or who they are. A load of rubbish with little or no value.
OBALEENA
I found my initial disturbance of these characters living way too close to the gutter, amazingly moved to an affection and an eyeopening awareness. The deep emotional pains of these characters are obvious, and yet presented in such a tender way, one can bear and become intrigued to look into this side of life and be moved, touched and understand. The result an enriching trip.Sean Penn's scenes are always amazing, but there are at least 3 that make the movie worth seeing alone. One scene where he speaks for the first time to his unknown 9year old daughter, one where he speaks of love being SO difficult and one when he has been confined to a straight jacket. This character's portrayal is so beautiful and unforgettable.John Travota too portrays an unforgettable character and performance.I cant help wondering what was the childhood to produce these people as they are, a young 9year gives a hint.
