A good movie

It might sound surprising but I actually liked this movie. Indeed, by now, I have seen most of the movies directed by Chris Columbus and I didn’t care much for any of his huge box-office success (‘Home Alone’ 1 and 2, ‘Harry Potter’ 1 and 2, even ‘Mrs Doubtfire’) but I enjoyed this movie and, as a matter of fact, in my opinion, it is in fact the best movie he has made so far, at least, in my opinion. Before watching this flick, I thought that the title was lame and I thought it would be just another tedious melodramatic family feature but I was pleasantly surprised. The point is that this movie has probably touched something personal since I have been a stepdad for already 10 years so I could certainly identify with the characters and their inner struggle. Without this personal connection, there is a good chance I wouldn’t have cared much for this movie. Julia Roberts did a decent job, she was quite charming as usual but she basically gave the same performance she gives in almost every single movies she has done and, at this point, I’m not sure we should consider this as ‘acting’. Considering Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris, they are both some of the finest actors and they did a good job here as usual, even though it was rather thankless. Indeed, since the movie is about the women, there is not much room for Harris and, for Sarandon, she has to be an annoying witch in the first half and in the second half, suddenly becomes someone completely different just to accommodate the script. So, even though I liked this flick, it still remains a standard tearjerker and, of course, someone has to get sick and, eventually, die at the end. It is unfortunately inherent to the genre and it’s too bad this movie didn’t manage to escape from this boring trick. To conclude, I might be biased about the subject, so you might not enjoy it like I did but I think it was pretty good and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10