One True Thing
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.54 You Save: $7.44 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.59 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of One True Thing
Movie Review: Great Movie, Great Actors
Summary: 5 Stars
One True Thing was released in 1998 (two years after Jerry McGuire) and stars Renee Zellweger and Meryl Streep. Renee portrays Ellen Gulden (or Ellie as her family calls her), a moxie journalist living in New York. She goes home to visit her family for the holidays and finds out her mother (Meryl) has cancer. Her father demands that she give up everything to move back home and take care of her mother. Because she adores her father and longs for his respect she does it.
One True Thing is beautifully filmed and acted. Without giving too much information, it is filmed from the perspective of Ellen as she's being interviewed by a lawyer about her mother's death. Her flashbacks are quite different from the words coming out of her mouth.
Ellie's mother has always been more of a silly inconvenience to her. As she begins to get to know her mother and see her father through adult eyes she realizes she has missed out on a truly fabulous woman. She also begins to discover the kind of woman she has grown into and what she wants out of her own life. I found this film interesting, entertaining and emotionally moving.
Gilmore Girls starlet, Lauren Graham makes an appearance as the loyal best friend, Tom Everett Scott plays Ellen's impressionable brother and William Hurt her emotionally detached father. The film is based on the book by the same name written by Anna Quindlen. After watching it I consider it one of Renee's and Meryl's best films. Reviewed by M.E. Wood.
Movie Review: A Wonderful and Interesting Family Drama!
Summary: 5 Stars
It seems less and less frequently that we get to see a superbly assembled cast of actors united in a story that tells itself in terms of its human interest, level of drama, and opportunity to learn something from the characters about the nature of life, relationships, and ultimately about ourselves. This movie offers such an opportunity. All of the cast memebers, but especially Meryl Streep and William Hurt, do an outstanding job in presenting this tale of a family in crisis, and the hidden secrets, weaknesses and strengths of its members and their enduring bonds to each other. The photography is well done, and the sound is excellent as well. This is a worthwhile and serious movie, involving some interesting intellectual issues about how the needs of a family of strong but loving individuals and quite strong and needy personalities clash and interact with each other over an increasingly critical stage of terminal illness for the matriarchal mother of this modern American family. Overall, then, I recommend this as an absorbing examination of an intellectual family with a range of family issues such as rilvary, and a number of hidden dimensions to the relationships within the family itself. It is painful to watch each of them struggle to deal with a member's decline and death due to cancer. One of the increasingly rare worthwhile movie experiences, and one well worth owning.
Movie Review: Fascinating, thought provoking family study. Meryl Streep amazing as always.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have simply adored this movie from the first viewing. Meryl Streep is amazing and totally committed to her role, as usual. She always impresses me because every character she plays is truly unique from the others. She creates characters in a way that few other characters do, and it adds so much to her films. This is no exception. Renee Z does a fine job (in an early role for her), too. As the daughter re-assimilates into her childhood home to care for her ailing mother, she sees her family in new (and more accurate) ways, faces questions old and new for her, and discovers her mother's questions as well (as she also begins to truly discover her mother for the first time). It really brings up a variety of feminist and independency questions, but abstains from providing answers. As a viewer, I feel and support Ellie's outrage at being put in care-giving (career-sacrificing) roles simply because she's "the girl", but I also get to see the strength both she and her mother exhibit in those care giving roles. At one point, Streep's character laments that Alcott is less sympathetic to Meg than Jo "because she has babies," expressing--slightly--her own frustrations from not being appreciated. It's interesting to see Ellie become stronger and more independent and outspoken (differentiating more from her father) even as she grows to appreciate her own seemingly unliberated mother.Movie Review: One of the few Movies that relate to real life.
Summary: 5 Stars
Great movie. I was immensely disturbed towards the end. Especially when the scene where the mother talks with her daughter about why she still loves her father even though she knows everything about him. Here's a line I will remember for a long time - "There is so much to be happy about what you have...". At the same time, I was angry at the father who in my opinion did not understand his wife's love for him. He was too proud. Even on the night when he was sitting drunk in a bar while his wife is in pain, all he was mad about was some famous author not remembering his book. At times like these, you want to jump off your seat and just lecture this guy about what life is about. I was also upset to see that he did not stay with his wife through the night, especially on her last night. Especially when she accepted him as a drunk husband, the night before. What love!
I have not been in a situation of giving care to a cancer patient. But after watching this movie, I know that if that option comes my way, I will do it! Love is Sacrifice. And this movie depicts an important aspect of that sacrifice.
The sad thing about such movies is this - We move on after being affected for a couple of days and then forget all about it. Our personal lives have become tangled and busy to let such a movie impact us for good. Sad.
Movie Review: Meryl Streep Was Robbed of the Oscar !
Summary: 5 Stars
Meryl Streep continues to amaze me by adding another performance to her gallery of great roles. Being a guy l have to be honest to say that l cried throughout the film, especially near the end. The whole issue of cancer is a very challening topic to present on film. "One True Thing" does a fantastic job at addressing one family's struggle with the life-threatening illness. Although the film starts off very slowly, l was intrigued with the struggle and friction that exists within a family. Meryl Streep earned her 11th Oscar nomination for this performance and she is amazing. I have to say that she was robbed of the Best Actress Oscar. Gwyneth Paltrow for "Shakespeare In Love" ? Pleeeease. The bathroom scene where Renee Zellwegger helps Meryl out of the bathtub is heartbreaking to watch. And when Meryl asks her daughter to help her out of her pain is the point of the movie where l'm sobbing like a baby. I was totally blown away by the power and raw emotion of that scene. I don't want to spoil the whole movie for you but if you're a fan of Meryl Streep's work, then you won't be disappointed. And forget about getting the tissue out, bring a whole roll of toilet paper cause you're gonna need it. This movie is 5 star weeper.