Reviews

The movie was tauted to be a comedy. It is not funny. It is a advocacy for immoral and amoral behaviour. The acting is not bad. They sometimes portray feelings in effective ways through body language and looks. I watched 90% and walked out. My wife watched all of it and was equally disgusted. The attempt to justify having children out of wed lock is not convincing and not funny. The story about traveling all over the US and Canada to find a place to bring up their out of we lock child is not realistic. Their friends and relatives are not realistic and not funny either. All in all, this is a movie that would have been better left not done.

The movie was depressing, to say the least. To have a dog bite destroy a teen age girl's life is bad enough without having the Church weigh in and make it a 100 times worse. The Church politics were corrupt and the Church took advantage of the poor young girl' misfortune. The story could have been told with more compassion. However, the Director tried to reflect the book's author's anti-Church and Communist views. This bias, I felt was so evident as to make the movie less credible. Instead of telling a story of this young girl, it felt more like a propaganda missive or what in modern times is called a "Talking Points" document of a Socialist Atheist.

The story is an old one, about the endurance of love. The grandmother who is torn between two people who love her and her heart is broken by the tug between her two lovers. Her performance was magnificent, is was that of her common-law-husband. He too is torn apart by his desire to have his wife and to have his wife be happy without him. The casting of the supporting actors was also great. I got so involved with the grandmother character that I cried a number of times when she was faced with a decision that nobody should ever face in their life time. The director weaved into the fabric of the story a fair amount of humor. Otherwise, the movie would have been depressing. However, with the humor, it became reality.

I had high expectations for this movie because the elite at the International Film Festival in Palm Springs promoted it so much. However, I did not find it funny. I did not find it informative. I did not find it added anything to my life except a wasted 2 hours in seeing it and listening the critiques of the film. The movie is simply a ego trip for the Director. He puts down everyone else in the "documentary". Only his genius was to shine through. I have to admit I never liked the Everybody Loves Raymond series because of the shallow humor. But this was much worse. The attempt at humor was not much of the purpose for the movie. I felt it was simply a ego trip and nothing else.

I was so mesmerized by this movie that when it was over I was left in shock. The characters took on such an incredible reality that they became part of my life for that 1.5 hours that the movie ran. I thought the actors were magnificent, especially the lead. She was so genuine and so real that I was rooting for her through out the movie. The musical score was equally moving. In fact, it took the combination of the music and the acting that was so magical for me. This is a movie for all ages and is not just entertainment, but is also educational. It teaches the audience that actions have consequences, and sometimes these consequences are much more drastic then expected.

This movie starts a little slow, but the pace accelerates and it ends with exhilaration. It is about the aging of people who have a purpose in their life; maintaining their vitality and ability to compete in sports. Although it is a documentary, it nevertheless has a half dozen people who are the leads. None are professional actors, but the film crew followed them for up to 4 years while filming them in their homes. Thus, the film is about that handful of people. It is about their life, their loves, their hopes and their past. The film ends at the completion of the World Masters Championships in Finland in 2009 in Finland. And with all competitions, there have to be winners and losers in the competition. But there were no losers in how they took the results.