A drama centered around three women: A 50-year-old woman, the daughter she gave up for adoption 35 years ago, and an African American woman looking to adopt a child of her own.
The last act lurch into soft-focus sentimentality...does the film no favours – undercutting its spikier elements rather than complementing them. Nevertheless, Bening and Watts are good enough to see it through, and it’s good to see Jackson actually play his age for once.
The intricate drama of the first hour springs a leak, and schmaltz comes flooding through the hole.
There’s pleasure and humour to be had in observing these troubled characters (and fine performers) as they navigate intimidating, unfamiliar territory...Yet the drama loses focus about midway through with the really compelling relationships falling by the wayside. Instead, writer-director Rodrigo Garcia (son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez) settles for soft-focused, manipulative melodrama that, by the climax, becomes rather laughable.
We feel no emotion and no climax.
Doesn't move the world, but holds your attention.
The writer-director, Rodrigo García, goes to such organisational effort that the movie itself resembles protracted labour – it strains through gritted teeth to join its story up, taking some pretty dubious shortcuts in basic credibility.
Its weaknesses, as is often the case with movies with intertwining storylines, are the plodding pace and the over-neat segues that place too much emphasis on chance and coincidence.
This is a contrived and self-conscious ensemble drama.
A tearjerker of the very first order.
Solid ensemble drama with too many threads to do justice too. Bening doesn't get the opportunity to hit The Kids Are Alright's highs.
Just a pity it grows gloopier and more pat the longer it goes on. At times I was tempted to yell an unsisterly "Get a grip!" as the woes and contrivances lined up.
It’s a potent process that develops in ways that are both unexpected and affecting, with many fine actors doing accomplished work, and though it’s a film that’s been on the festival circuit since 2009, its release now makes it well worth seeking out.
Structural issues hamper an otherwise thought-provoking and well-acted meditation on motherhood. While emotions run high, it won’t leave you pregnant with anticipation.
One can smell tragedies and resolutions coming from several scenes away, even if one cannot deny their effectiveness once they arrive.
It's a highly contrived affair with a barely concealed, deeply conservative Catholic agenda, and it has the ring of a cracked bell calling the righteous to prayer.
It's one of those pseudo-intellectual ensemble dramas with numerous overlapping storylines which think they're profoundly significant just because they don't have a sense of humour.
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow from Wednesday January 11, 2012, until Thursday January 12, 2012. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
Dominion, Edinburgh from Wednesday January 11, 2012, until Thursday January 19, 2012. More info: http://www.dominioncinemas.net
RSS feed of Cinema reviews