Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on October 04, 2005 at 07:57:22

In Reply to: I truly would love to know what he laughed about posted by Victor Khomenko on October 2, 2005 at 06:00:47:

Been in NYC for a few days, so I am now only able to respond to your query. It has been some time since I have seen the film, but I did laugh at the dinner table scene when the daughter brings home her older boyfriend, and his head explodes. Totally unexpected, and Joan Allen perfectly plays the scene. I found the producers mannerisms humourous when he first met Joan Allen's daughter, and then decides to hire her. Undoubtedly there were more.

I found it to be a human film, intelligently written. The ending was unpredictable, and brought into a perfect resolution all that had come before. If you do not like Costner, well, that is not the product of the film, but the product of your bias. Why you do not like Costner, and then watch a film in which he stars is beyond me. What is that old saying about some people needing something to complain about?

I also appreciated how the film was able to provide us numerous characters, but all their stories were fully fleshed, told. I liked how Allen's husband has abandoned her. Most films, the world over, would spend their time on the emotions, anger, being hurt, being resentful, etc., that the abandonee must go through, ignoring the fact that life goes on, that kids must be taken to school, meals prepared, mortgages paid, homework checked, etc. I am not sure that is "sappy." Perhaps you prefer the European preference to depict the subject artfully spending two hours on the screen wallowing in self pity, and pithy friends commiserating with them. But I am not sure that film is any better. And the ending is anything but sappy.