TMG Scale 10.0
Starring Oliver Platt, Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet, Ann Morgan Guilbert and many more.
Moving. Touching. Wonderful. This film grabs and takes you through so many emotions. It should challenge every living person to revisit their outlook on people, love and life. I heartily suggest this film for everyone and think it should be mandatory for every teenage girl. High school film teachers should be required to make this movie part of their curriculum. Quit discussing the The Picture of Dorian Gray if you have to, and use this film.
A New York City husband and wife (Platt and Keener) are meandering through life with a difficult teen and get intertwined with the granddaughters of an elderly woman (Ann Morgan Guilbert—remember Millie Helper from The Dick Van Dyke Show?) who lives in their apartment building. So many great films seem to start innocuous enough. The two granddaughters (Hall and Peet) have issues of their own. Fact is, everyone in this film has issues and at least a few personality flaws. But don’t we all?
This film triumphs because while we may think we are better than everyone it portrays, there has been, or still is, a bit of them in all of us. It makes us want to re-examine ourselves for our cancers within. And perhaps that explains the writers decision for the very unconventional start to this movie. (TMG will not spoil it for you.) Even the hard to understand and apparently hardened and selfish young teen girl of Platt and Keener is simply struggling for one little thing to give herself identity in life. Not a single bullet, special effect, car chase, or gun can be found in this film. [Oh yeah….it does have the mandatory commercial for a Mac computer. No problem, TMG is a Mac guy.]
Admittedly, TMG was a bit lost the first 20 minutes of this movie. I really thought I had stumbled into the wrong theatre and was watching some independent art film. I was also tempted to knock this one down to a TMG 9.0 because it appeared to have been filmed with two Sony handicams. Maybe that was part of its simplicity and charm. There are some serious laughs though. Platt deserves an Oscar, but so does everyone in this movie. Just go see this film. Please go.