Lovely and Amazing
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Movie Reviews of Lovely and Amazing
Movie Review: One reason to watch it: Brenda Blethyn
Summary: 3 Stars
Brenda Blethyn is in this movie. She's one of my favorite actresses and has been since `Secrets and Lies'. Here she's, are you ready for it, quirky! And has two quirky adult daughters and adopted a third daughter who might out do them all in the quirky department. These people are sad but it's hard not to like them. I didn't understand the inclusion of pedophilia in such a comic movie. It barely works in serious movies as `Little Children' and `Notes on Scandal'. The light treatment of it bothered me. By the end there did seem to be some emotional growth for all the characters as they rushed off to get mom from the hospital where she'd undergone liposuction. Sheesh. It's not a bad movie but it's hard to understand why it was made. Even the title highlights some of the frothy dialog.Movie Review: a series of well-acted vignettes
Summary: 3 Stars
While I didn't think this film cohered well, there were a number of interesting scenes featuring a gifted cast -- Brenda Blethyn, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, Emily Mortimer and Raven Goodwin. Blethyn plays the mother of Keener, Mortimer and Goodwin. Each one has "issues" -- poor body image, eating disorders, self-destructive behavior, etc. and the film's action takes place after Blethyn has had complications from a liposuction procedure.Subtitles are available in English or Spanish. Extras include a trailer and several short interviews with the director and stars Mortimer, Mulroney and Keener. There is no commentary track.
Movie Review: Doesn't Quite Live Up To Its Potential
Summary: 3 Stars
"Lovely and Amazing" is an interesting, well-acted film about family and relationships, and the struggles of the individuals in them. I enjoyed it, yet found it a bit unfocused. In the end, it didn't seem quite as cohesive as it should have been. A bit fragmentary, perhaps. I'm not sorry I saw it, and I appreciated the performances of Catherine Keener (always a pleasure), Emily Mortimer, Brenda Blethyn, and Raven Goodwin. The writer and director Nicole Holofcener has talent and I look forward to her next project. I just felt like "Lovely and Amazing" could've been a bit better.Movie Review: Heartkindness paid nothing
Summary: 3 Stars
It is a story of going-liposuction mother and grandmother having an eight old daughter of Afro-American background adopted to entertain herself as two biological daughters (an artist turned film technician in a shop run by seventeen year old sex-sick school pupil and an actress uncomfortable in shooting sex-scenes with strangers) struggle with their personal and financial situations.
At the end of the day the actress is paid for her heartkindness (to stray animals at least) with a dog disfigures her main asset her face is.
Movie Review: As Hellish as the lives it depicts.
Summary: 2 Stars
The experience of watching 'Lovely and Amazing' is akin to spending an hour and a half with selfish, annoying, miserable relatives at a family reunion. It's too bad considering the grade-A talent involved. Offbeat, interesting actors like Catherine Keener, Clark Gregg, Jake Gyllenhaal, Brenda Blethlyn, Emily Mortimer, and James LeGros are forced, against their nature by writer/director Nicole Holofcener to be as unpleasant, unsympathetic, and in some cases, downright despicable as possible. It's more than that the characters are "flawed"; from the beginning, we don't have anyone to root for, an ineluctable problem for any story. Of all faults to have, its unlikability is the one I'd least expect from Holofcener considering her incredibly charming and wry debut "Walking and Talking." Catherine Keener plays Michelle, our centerpiece character. She is mean to her sensible husband played by Clark Gregg. We're supposed to feel okay about her shrewishness because he's having an affair with her friend. But actually, the converse is true. His infidelity is understandable given HER erratic behavior. ...
Everyone in this movie has done better work. Movies like Donnie Darko and October Sky show Jake Gyllenhaal's (as a young suitor to Keener) deep range and aversion to steretypical characters. Being John Malchovich, if not showing her likability, showcased Keener's seductive grin and acting skill. Clark Gregg was excellent in "Adventures of Sebastian Cole." And the great Blethlyn as Keener's equally dysfunctional mom can even give a nasty character such as hers in "Secrets and Lies" a highly watchable punch. However, the biggest letdown is Holofcener herself. "Walking and Talking" truly is an excellent movie, a poignant sympathetic, funny look at real people, and showed incredible promise for Nicole Holofcener's career. Let's hope she can bounce back from this mean, unpleasant movie and make the brilliant dramedy she is capable of.