I have been a big Adrienne Shelly fan since her early Hal Hartley movies and also saw her uneven but touching "I'll Take You There," where she brought out the screwball in Ally Sheedy without sacrificing her edge. Here she brings out a deeply funny, authentic and moving performance from Keri Russell, a performer I did not dislike but never thought a lot of before this film. She also casts the rest of the people impeccably, A#1 being Andy Griffith;if you've ever seen "A Face in the Crowd" you know that he is one of the titanic largely untapped acting talents of the last century. His scenes with Ms. Russell make up the true heart of this small but mighty film. Jeremy Sisto is perfect as well, his character is not given any background beyond the fact that he changed after marriage, but Sisto constant vulnerability mixed with his monstrosity and telling lines like "I've never had anybody belong to me before," seem to indicate that he became drunk with the power of authority when he entered the marriage and his own fragile sense of power caused him to be the (often hilarious, as with the car honking, often terrible, as with the physical violence) broken, absurd and terrible person he is in the film. Eddie Jemison shines in a part that is really risky, he has to be even more overbearing than Sisto's character, but to be the exact opposite, to be actually worthy. Shelly herself and Cheryl Hines are solid in their support (Shelly is adorable), but keep the spotlight firmly on Ms. Russell. Nathan Fillion has been perfect in everything I've ever seen him in, and his open and unpretentious, handsome semi-doofus-but-convincing-as-a-doctor character shows a broader range than his heretofore role as a sort of new-wave Bruce Campbell.
Unfortunately the film loses its footing towards the end with sentiment overtaking the sensibilities preceding it. A maudlin and manipulative mother-daughter song is obviously ADR and not source, and it relies upon the old "everything changes when you see your baby" switcheroo. Then she leaves the hospital without even checking on Old Joe, who just gave her tons of money and is currently in a coma (presumably because to have him just dead would be what, too much of a downer? A coma is better?), then she buys the pie shop and takes Joe's name off it, which doesn't seem very nice. She gives up any chance for a balanced life and lives entirely for her daughter, who she dresses like a doll and then dresses up the same as. She also ditches the doc who, while married to a good person, obviously loves her more than his wife.
It is through the outright charm of Fillion and Ms. Russell that the entire affair is able to come across as not-as-not-right as it is. But for it to go nowhere brings back the creepiness about it they managed to turn away. The whole first 2/3 of the movie is pretty excellent, but I can't ignore that I was really let down by the way it all wrapped up. Up until that point there is a sense of genuine feeling and a level-headedness about, for example, how difficult it must be to leave even someone like Earl and everything you know, not just making it seem easy. Then at the end she just does it, he is dragged off, apparently never gives her more trouble and it actually was just that easy.
Ms. Shelly was undeniably very very talented and her death is a great loss to the film community (and so sad that the little girl at the end is hers), maybe her next one would have been 3/3 excellent. I think I'm going to go eat some pie now.
Unfortunately the film loses its footing towards the end with sentiment overtaking the sensibilities preceding it. A maudlin and manipulative mother-daughter song is obviously ADR and not source, and it relies upon the old "everything changes when you see your baby" switcheroo. Then she leaves the hospital without even checking on Old Joe, who just gave her tons of money and is currently in a coma (presumably because to have him just dead would be what, too much of a downer? A coma is better?), then she buys the pie shop and takes Joe's name off it, which doesn't seem very nice. She gives up any chance for a balanced life and lives entirely for her daughter, who she dresses like a doll and then dresses up the same as. She also ditches the doc who, while married to a good person, obviously loves her more than his wife.
It is through the outright charm of Fillion and Ms. Russell that the entire affair is able to come across as not-as-not-right as it is. But for it to go nowhere brings back the creepiness about it they managed to turn away. The whole first 2/3 of the movie is pretty excellent, but I can't ignore that I was really let down by the way it all wrapped up. Up until that point there is a sense of genuine feeling and a level-headedness about, for example, how difficult it must be to leave even someone like Earl and everything you know, not just making it seem easy. Then at the end she just does it, he is dragged off, apparently never gives her more trouble and it actually was just that easy.
Ms. Shelly was undeniably very very talented and her death is a great loss to the film community (and so sad that the little girl at the end is hers), maybe her next one would have been 3/3 excellent. I think I'm going to go eat some pie now.