I adore Joan Allen, and was rooting for her. However, watching her, I'm reminded of a one-line review of Robert DeNiro in 'New York, New York' : "DeNiro plays a saxophonist like a clenched fist."
Inciting incident: offscreen, a husband allegedly runs off with his Swedish secretary - to Sweden, of all places.
Angry, hard-drinking wife cancels the credit cards. That'll show him.. If he was dead, then there'd be no husband-related balance changes to their bank accounts. The very dullest of intellects might notice the lack of withdrawals.
If he was dead, then where's the alleged Swedish secretary? Why didn't she come around? Why is there no missing-persons search? And where'd the rumor that they ran off to Sweden come from?
Terry says that she heard that her husband "wasn't talking about it to his co-workers": if he wasn't at the office, he couldn't talk about it, true, but the tiny point that he wasn't at the office at ALL didn't seem to make it through.
Kostner lets himself be filmed with unflattering stubble and body fat, gets to act slightly drunk most of the time, and looks like he enjoyed himself thoroughly. Although why he's attracted to Allen's spiky, completely unlikeable Terry character is utterly unexplained.
The four daughters were definitely all photogenic and each has fragmentary subplots.
Number One, the eldest, is preggers on graduation day and gives Mom the news that she's getting married. Exit stage left. We only see her again at the end, pregnant again. No babies in evidence.
Number Two is a wannabe dancer with stomach-aches and lots of conflict with Mom, which lands her in hospital, life in danger, oops, it's 'only' stress related, let's go to the ballet where Mom Will See It My Way And Let Me Live My Dream.
Number Three Doesn't Want To Go To University (way to rebel!) and instead gets involved with a sleazy radio producer, Denny's old friend.
Number Four, the youngest, tries repeatedly to seduce a moronic kid whose only topic of converse is bungee jumping, and it turns out he doesn't even do that, like Peter Sellers, he likes to watch. Oh, and he's gay.
Number Four daughter also carries the heavy-handed task of providing subtext, in the form of a stupid computer video ("..a CLASS assignment, Mother") about conflict and warfare between the sexes, which gives us too-often-repeated visuals of people hitting each other from old silent films, and gives her all too many opportunities for portentous voice-over crimes against this already crippled film.
Director/writer Mike Binder writes himself a role where he gets to entice Terry's juiciest daughter with a dream job, and then becomes her lover. He's the only one that ever tells Terry how hateful she is, getting slapped for his trouble. Kostner's Denny character, knowing full well what a sleazebag Binder's character is, goes ahead and gets Binder and Daughter Number Three together anyway. Sorry, aging male fantasy time.
The big revelation near the end of this film was a complete bust. The fiction was that Terry's husband had run off with his secretary and had no contact whatsoever.
But hey! He's been dead in a hole all this time!
For a few minutes after the big discovery-in-the-woods, I thought it was possible that Terry had killed him and hidden his body in the 80 acre wood behind their house.. now, THAT would have been a reversal worth waiting for, and would have explained Terry's total lack of interest in her departed husband's whereabouts. But it would've undercut the purported reason for all that vitriol.. but we could've re-understood it as guilt and anger at herself.. ah, the wasted opportunities.
But no, we get a long-delayed funeral, where Denny's finally wormed his way into the family. And of course the big, heavy-handed irony is that Terry's three years of good anger was wasted.. Oh, All The Damage She's Wrought.
Inciting incident: offscreen, a husband allegedly runs off with his Swedish secretary - to Sweden, of all places.
Angry, hard-drinking wife cancels the credit cards. That'll show him.. If he was dead, then there'd be no husband-related balance changes to their bank accounts. The very dullest of intellects might notice the lack of withdrawals.
If he was dead, then where's the alleged Swedish secretary? Why didn't she come around? Why is there no missing-persons search? And where'd the rumor that they ran off to Sweden come from?
Terry says that she heard that her husband "wasn't talking about it to his co-workers": if he wasn't at the office, he couldn't talk about it, true, but the tiny point that he wasn't at the office at ALL didn't seem to make it through.
Kostner lets himself be filmed with unflattering stubble and body fat, gets to act slightly drunk most of the time, and looks like he enjoyed himself thoroughly. Although why he's attracted to Allen's spiky, completely unlikeable Terry character is utterly unexplained.
The four daughters were definitely all photogenic and each has fragmentary subplots.
Number One, the eldest, is preggers on graduation day and gives Mom the news that she's getting married. Exit stage left. We only see her again at the end, pregnant again. No babies in evidence.
Number Two is a wannabe dancer with stomach-aches and lots of conflict with Mom, which lands her in hospital, life in danger, oops, it's 'only' stress related, let's go to the ballet where Mom Will See It My Way And Let Me Live My Dream.
Number Three Doesn't Want To Go To University (way to rebel!) and instead gets involved with a sleazy radio producer, Denny's old friend.
Number Four, the youngest, tries repeatedly to seduce a moronic kid whose only topic of converse is bungee jumping, and it turns out he doesn't even do that, like Peter Sellers, he likes to watch. Oh, and he's gay.
Number Four daughter also carries the heavy-handed task of providing subtext, in the form of a stupid computer video ("..a CLASS assignment, Mother") about conflict and warfare between the sexes, which gives us too-often-repeated visuals of people hitting each other from old silent films, and gives her all too many opportunities for portentous voice-over crimes against this already crippled film.
Director/writer Mike Binder writes himself a role where he gets to entice Terry's juiciest daughter with a dream job, and then becomes her lover. He's the only one that ever tells Terry how hateful she is, getting slapped for his trouble. Kostner's Denny character, knowing full well what a sleazebag Binder's character is, goes ahead and gets Binder and Daughter Number Three together anyway. Sorry, aging male fantasy time.
The big revelation near the end of this film was a complete bust. The fiction was that Terry's husband had run off with his secretary and had no contact whatsoever.
But hey! He's been dead in a hole all this time!
For a few minutes after the big discovery-in-the-woods, I thought it was possible that Terry had killed him and hidden his body in the 80 acre wood behind their house.. now, THAT would have been a reversal worth waiting for, and would have explained Terry's total lack of interest in her departed husband's whereabouts. But it would've undercut the purported reason for all that vitriol.. but we could've re-understood it as guilt and anger at herself.. ah, the wasted opportunities.
But no, we get a long-delayed funeral, where Denny's finally wormed his way into the family. And of course the big, heavy-handed irony is that Terry's three years of good anger was wasted.. Oh, All The Damage She's Wrought.