AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Fatma Suarez
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
mb-155
So I am just about getting in to this fairly 'masochistic' drama, which is pretty good, but had to pause to point out not every very clever person is depressed and mean spirited. Being mean spirited Olive Kitterridge has to smugly point this out near the start. In my opinion life is not as black and white as that Olive.There is a continuing run on creating drams where to be clever somehow or other equates to snide remakes, sarcasm, and people with mean spirits and so on and are also 'dysfunctional' in some way. Step forward the character Bill Murray always plays. He was brilliant in Groundhog Day and for me that's where it ended. He always plays that sort of part. Well good let's balance the books when the world appears to need 'negative' dramas like this roll them out and that is what people now like.But she made this point about cleverness and depression in the first part of the film. I am sorry but this is not true. This trend is typified in other dramas like 'House' where the lead also happens to be a 'mean' person who is clever etc and in Doc Martin where, through no fault of his own, the lead character has a psychological illness but often has a 'mean' character. Reading the reviews on here people love this sort of drama. So be it.All I want to do is make is a small point and that I know a person, very close to my wife and I who is very clever IQ 130 at junior school tested by county psychologist and both my wife and I have had to deal with his huge depressions but he is not always making snide remarks and is not prone to sarcasm either. He has had huge issues settling down in life though.He has pitch perfect hearing and plays brilliant improvised classical music when he is very sad. He is never as good on the piano when he is happy. I would hate to think being clever equates to being spiteful to one and all. Don't get hoodwinked into believing this. There are plenty of low IQ nasty people and high IQ sarcastic people but also lots of 'nice' people with very high IQs. This film is set from the 1980s onwards heading towards the me, myself and I world. I guess very different from the post war era from when they were rolling out films like James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life altogether a much easier film to watch for a sentimental person like me - even if it's in black and white.
angelccampoamor
That's what I asked my wife when I saw the last scene of this pseudo-Pulitzer.My conclusions? HBO must be a mafia. If not I don't understand it. I don't understand that they can award any kind of Emmy to this regular soap-opera. Only explanation: HBO took charge of the asylum.That would also explain the "best script" award to Game of Thrones, instead of "Mad Men".And, by the way, How dare they advertise Bill Murray as supporting actor? It's a plain hoax. He is only 10 minutes or less on screen through the whole show. And thank god for that, 'cause it wasn't a good part either. Just the same old Bill Murray grumpy old guy. But poor and lame.And thank god again, it was only 4 installments. I was bored already on the second.'Nuff said.
ChaCha44
Just because something is well written, nicely directed and terrifically acted doesn't mean that it will be enjoyed by viewers, at least not this viewer. OK, I understand the awards for individual achievements but as someone who just sat and watched the whole thing in one sitting, the only thing I'm walking away with is depression. Usually when you have a show of this type, there is some nod to something positive, maybe a small uplifting message but alas there was none. You don't even get a sense of self awareness. I don't think this was boring but just wish it would have come with a disclaimer "Warning - Viewing this show can be a real downer".
ekat-708-190051
I love Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins since I saw them both in Burn after reading. That was when I started to collect (and see) all movies from the Coen brothers, including Fargo, where Frances McDormand was very good. And I always see every movie which has Richard Jenkins as well. But that here was when I realized how incredibly good actors they both are, it just was magic. Like I was spying on some family somehow, you never felt it was just acting. The story was sad, and sometimes embarrassing, but it had wonderful pictures and it was so.... human. I had to keep looking. And in the end there was hope as well. So maybe I should have given more than 8 points, for the acting was definitely 10/10.
