Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

italianredneckgirl Of all the movies that deal with the delicate subject of elder care and Alzheimer's diagnoses, this movie, by far realistically portrayed the struggle within the patient. Thanks to the incomparable skill of Walter Matheau. Everything from the tendency of the patient to wander, mistake people for others, fixate on objects that evoke memory, and the acerbic tone that melts into a questioning almost childlike tone when re-acclimated with reality. That, right there, was why I felt compelled to give the film 2 stars. The rest of the movie isn't worth a mention. I cannot believe that Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, and Lisa Kudrow could not deliver, together, what is directly in their wheelhouse, individually. Meg Ryan, hey, you're in your 50's. Time to stop trying to cash in on the cute, little blonde, girl next door. The scattered character she's trying to portray deserved better. And since we're at it, Diane Keaton, you're not all that either. I know the character called for self obsessed,driven, seemingly heartless wretch that you delivered, expertly. But, your direction was horrible. Lisa Kudrow couldn't shake the Phoebe curse. And, well, enough said. I know it was supposed to be heart-wrenching. It was supposed to be uplifting and empowering. All it was, unfortunately, was really long. The whole mess of the middle eastern physician and his mother, just complete nonsense. The big reveal of "what happened in the house" wasn't anything new. An alcoholic, early onset Alzheimer's behavior. It wasn't endearing us to Eve. It made me wonder why it took so long to get him placed in an ALF. Poorly dealt with, poorly acted (with the exception of Matheau),and incredibly poorly directed. Ambling, disconnected characters in a very long, disjointed film. That, at the end of the day, was really nothing more than a vanity project at the hands of Keaton.

LilyDaleLady I caught this on late night TV, having missed it in the theaters originally. I wasn't expecting brilliance, but just HOW bad this was - given all the talent involved (Keaton, Ryan, Kudrow, Ephron sisters) it was pretty shockingly poor.One thing that stood out to me (in 2014) is that filmmakers need to be more careful about centering pictures on things like phones or computers. The technology changes SO fast, and it dates the film just horribly. Think about movies from the 40s-60s; they often seem ageless. But nobody today can see those big clunky cellphones from 1999 without falling over laughing...my god! the giant antennas! lol!What we DO forget though -- and this is endemic throughout the entire film -- is how costly a cellphone was in 1999. It was something only a person of wealth and privilege would own, or if you did own it, could use it round the clock, with no concern over every expensive minute (unlimited chat was unknown then). Simply that the Mozell clan can afford to yak constantly on expensive phones was a clear, elitist signal that these folks are staggering rich -- BEFORE you notice that they all live in giant Hollywood mansions, drive huge SUVs and can travel about on a whim.Screenwriters Delia and Nora Ephron based this on their own lives, as wealthy Hollywoodistas, but it just displays their cluelessness about how ordinary Americans live or deal with the universal problem of aging parents, illness and death. It trivializes a whole serious and very human subject. In his last film, Walter Matthau is touching if for no other reason than he was actually very ill and just hanging on; he died a few months later.Diane Keaton directs this mess very awkwardly, though she was given a script that I think had to have been close to unfilmable. For starters, it is heavily autobiographical -- the Ephrons are a sister clan of successful writers, whose parents WERE successful Hollywood screenwriters. That means everyone involved was way too close to the subject or milieu to be objective.Meg Ryan is attractive here, pre-facelift, though she is playing the same role as in many other films (goofy overwhelmed chick). Keaton should have known better than to cast herself; she is 16-18 years older than the other actresses and far too old to be their sister (we see them all playing together as as similar-age siblings in flashbacks!).The main star here is....the lavish sets, the art direction of which totally distracts from the plot. Ryan's character lives in a Tuscan mansion of vast proportions and decor, despite no visible means of income. Matthau is shown in an unbelievably posh Modernist mansion you enter on a bridge over a pool (and it's been seen in FAR too many other movies and commercials to work here as a believable family home).The final straw: at the excruciating end (the film is 95 minutes but feels like 3 hours), the sisters come together after Dad's sudden death for Thanksgiving dinner. They get in a cutesy, phony food fight throwing flour on each other's posh black Donna Karan outfits (*plugged by NAME!)....now, who without a maid or cleaning service, would throw FLOUR all over themselves and the kitchen floor, just before Thanksgiving dinner? Nobody. Only someone rich, and with servants, would remotely consider it.Conclusion: just painful to watch, unfunny and snobbishly elitist. Avoid.

inspectors71 Telemarketer irritation--that's the feeling I had when I watched Hanging Up, an almost cartoonishly clichéd "woman's movie." Diane Keaton's direction of this mess is so incompetent that I hope she never stands behind a camera again. The movie fails on every level--it bored my wife and daughter (and it's only because I'm anal about finishing movies that I sat through 95 minutes of Hell; they went to bed).This was Walter Matthau's last movie, and it hurts to see such a premiere talent being wasted (although his toupee looks as if it could live on). Meg Ryan appears to have lost weight for Hanging Up (if that's possible) and seems to be carrying the mass of the world on her shoulders, physically dissipating in front of our eyes while wearing one paper-thin muscle shirt after another. Looking scrawny and bra-less isn't appealing to anyone.Okay, enough for the nastiness. This really is a waste of film stock. Whatever BIG messages it has about sibling rivalry and familial relationships and keeping your accident from your insurance company are lost in Keaton's attempt to play cute and/or sweet (the dog and the pill; the Iranian mom).The movie's called Hanging Up. My suggestion is to take the phone off the hook before the opening credits.

moonspinner55 The best scene in this Diane Keaton-directed film has drunken dad Walter Matthau showing up at a kid's birthday party bellowing and vulgar, but it doesn't belong in a comedy. It's more like something out of "Shoot The Moon", which Keaton starred in, and would fit much better in a film with a darker tone. "Hanging Up" wobbles around in search of appropriate emotions, but Keaton just can't get a consistent rhythm going. Her performance as the eldest of three unhappy sisters is also wan (she's winging it), however Meg Ryan as the middle sister has some fabulous moments: she hugs a coffee machine, she tries to convince her husband that driving a wrecked truck is going to work for her, she tells off her father but cries because she loves him. This is a performance well worth watching, but the picture definitely needed a director with a tighter grip on the reins. **1/2 from ****