This is a movie about two sisters who discover they have a grandmother they didn't know they had and the relationships that build, get destroyed and get rebuilt again. There needs to be more movies out there like this with strong female characters and good story lines that treat them like people and not some over sexed, hyper glamorized, bean pole that Hollywood keeps saying is how women are.
This movie was great, a lot better than I thought it was going to be and everything that goes into making a good movie was here in spades: direction, casting, acting, screenplay, set design (yes set design) and wardrobe (yes wardrobe).
First off, yes this is a typical drama with hardly any surprises in the screenplay but the screenplay plays to the strengths of the characters letting their actions and choices determine where the storyline is going, where as most Hollywood movies seem to want over-the-top occurrences (that border on the implausible) to determine where the story line goes. Here the characters are allowed to be characters and the movie is all the better for it.
I'm not a huge Cameron Diaz fan but this is probably one of her best acted movies that gives her more range than I've seen from her in a long time. I just wonder if she has somewhere in her contract that she has to appear in at least one seen in bra and panties and another scene showing off her legs? This is just something I wonder-not that I was complaining mind you. Toni Collette has always been a solid actress- I've liked her in everything I've seen her in - and she gives another solid performance here that proves what a good actress she is as she more than holds her own with the great Shirley MacLaine. Shirley MacLaine is well Shirley MacLaine of the best actresses of her generation and even the new generation that has risen up. She was one of the reasons I wanted to see this movie and did not disappoint at all . There is one scene near the end of the film that has MacLaine, Collette, and Diaz in it where some revelations are discovered. It is easily one of the best scenes in the movie and one of the best scenes in movies I've seen in a long time: well written and acted with the characters personality really driving home the scene with certain parts that didn't require dialogue but just had the actresses facial features doing all the acting.
Hanson - being a very good director - let his actresses act and didn't ruin this scene with over editing and chose some good camera angles to enhance the acting and the writing. The set design also helped to make this movie better than I thought. Hanson is really good at this see - The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and LA Confidential for proof. The Philadelphia scenes were colored in chrome, blues, shadows, and dark colors while the architecture was very confined with sharp angles. The Miami scenes, by contrast, were colored with bright colors, lots of green grass, pastels, summer and warm colors while the architecture was more curved and open, no where near as confining as the Philadelphia scenes. The wardrobe department did a great job letting the clothes the sisters and their grandmother wore really help to enhance the characteristics of these characters. All in all a good movie and well the time of watching.
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