One True Thing
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Movie Reviews of One True Thing
Movie Review: dsffs
Summary: 5 Stars
sfsfa4esd wrtwe45tqwv retr5yrt5ybrt tryfrygf54t3 erttyrtyvre6yrtuy rygrtytryMovie Review: Not Exactly Type Casting
Summary: 4 Stars
I recall that when Meryl Streep was doing publicity for this film a few years ago, she cracked that when she first got the script, she assumed that she would be playing the daughter. In point of fact, if the film had been made twenty years before, she would have been perfect for the part of the ambitious young journalist, whose father virtually drafts her to return home and care for her deathly ill mother. Streep's patrician good-looks, her sharp features and cool air would have been perfect for the young Ellen Gulden.Not that's she's bad as a suburban matron--Streep can pretty much pull any role off with aplomb. As the dutiful wife of self-obsessed English professor with literary aspirations, she never rings a false note. And it's remarkable that when she complains about how female faculty members in her husband department often seem to look down their noses at a "mere" faculty wife, it rings true. Streep, of course, radiates intelligence, and there is a certain irony in the fact that her character is made to feel less than adequate, at least momentarily, when in fact she is likely the intellectual equal of any of them.
As far as casting somewhat against type goes, there has been considerable discussion over the choice of Renee Zellweger to portray the ambitious journalist daughter. Well, aside from the fact that she looks nothing like Streep (though she could pass for William Hurt's child, I suppose), she is actually much better in the part than I would have guessed. We should not assume that all young women journalists are tough-as-nails dames who never betray an emotion. Zellweger actually reminds me a little of the author of the novel on which this film was based (and who also contributed to the screenplay). Anna Quindlen herself has always seemed to me to be an affable soul in many ways. Doesn't mean that she can't make a deadline or hold her own in a smoke filled room.
A good word should be added for William Hurt's work here. He could easily have just come off as the villain in this piece. He is certainly capable of being an insensitive clod, but Hurt does bring a certain pathos to his character and certainly would have developed him more had he had just a little more screen time.
Movie Review: Good movie
Summary: 4 Stars
This was a really nice dramatic movie which Meryl Streep truly shines in. The movie also stars Renee Zellweger and William Hurt. Zellweger plays a workaholic who lives in New York, and goes home to visit her family for her father's (Hurt) birthday. She learns that her mother (Streep) has cancer and her father asks her to move home to take care of him, thus leaving her career, life and boyfriend behind in New York. Zellweger plays a cold character who is distant from her family, but she has to hold it together for all of them. She soon learns how much her mother does day to day, and finds herself growing with resentment towards her father who takes no part in helping or caring for his wife. He also has affairs and is emotionally distant from the family. The movie focuses mainly on the women, so you find yourself relating to them more than the father. The movie was well done and Streep stole the performance as the dying mother, nothing short of excellent work as usual. My only complaint is the way the scenes are put together. The movie starts in 1988 where Zellweger's character is talking to a lawyer, and then you watch the past and see the story interjected between these scenes, which cuts between the drama and is not very effective in my opinion. Also, in the end when the mother dies from drug overdose, the daughter believes her father did it, and vice versa. It was not explained very well or even exposed that the mother was the one who did it, it just seemed to sneak in right at the end. Overall a good movie though.Movie Review: A view to a soul!
Summary: 4 Stars
Ellen (Zellwegger) is a rising star with a New York magazine that may have just gotten her big break and chance to 'wow' her literary professor father (Hurt) with her new found success.
After she returns home to attend a birthday party for her father she learns that her mother (Streep) has been diagnosed with cancer. Ellen's father guilts her into saying that she will put her future on hold and move home to help care for her mother. In Ellen's eyes her father was strong and authoritative, intelligent and stoic; while her mother was silly and naïve and involved herself in frivolous, meaningless things.
Over the course of her mother's care Ellen begins to see things in a different light. Convinced that her father is cheating on her mother while she has been forced to be the caregiver she begins to blaze a new path of consciousness. In a twist of circumstance Ellen comes to realize that her father never had an original thought of his own and that her mother was the backbone of the family...the one who understood the capacity of each member of the family and the one that soothed and protected the wounds of missed opportunities and bore the brunt of failures. She was his "One True Thing."
One True Thing
Movie Review: One True Thing
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is so well performed by Meryl Streep, William Hurt, and especially Renee Zellweger, that I could experience the frustrations of each of the characters. I felt the pain of Meryl Streep and her stress brought on by her inability to do the things that she loved to do for her family and home. I felt the struggle of William Hurt trying to receive acclaim for his literary work, and having it forgotten by the one person, whose opinion meant so much to him. I felt the resentment that Renee felt being thrust into a situation that she felt could have been dealt with by her father. I felt her ineptness trying to make a meal for her mother's friends and being unable to manage it the way her mother was accustomed to doing. I felt her sense of being trapped into giving up her career opportunity to stay and help her mother. I also felt her accepting and being glad to be there for her mother as her illness progressed to the end.
A magnificently played film all around
Beatrice