Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

alsation72 Spoilers are not possible for this predictable mawkish mess: its as obvious as it is brainless. This film is a remake of "No Man of Her Own", a 1950 clunker which starred Barbara Stanwyck.Obviously Ricki Lake is no Barbara Stanwyck, but in this film she comes across as conniving, irritating and unlike-able. Barefoot and pregnant, she is mistaken for Mrs. Winterbourne's daughter in law. This badly- concocted case of mistaken identity basically drives the weak story.Apparently despite a wedding and impending birth, Mrs Winterbourne has never seen even a picture of her son's wife. Did Shirley MacLain read the script before she signed up?Ricki Lake comes off as a tubby little tomboy; as a leading lady in a feature film she makes a great talk-show host. She says "ain't" a lot, just so we remember how impoverished the character was. The romance that blossoms between her and Fraser's character is not believable; together they have zero chemistry. When the jig is up and the deception is uncovered the family instantly seems to accept it because they are just so darned lovable. Maybe if they had used someone like Sandra Bullock and really made an effort to update this stinker of a storyline ... maybe then it might have been bearable.

stormy_daze So.... two hours before bed, I'm bored.... want to watch something fluffy and pointless, something i won't get too invested in before sleep... something i won't really care if i fall asleep during it... but something i haven't seen in a while.Always been a big fan of Frazer, and decided to watch this for a strange reason -- Frazer is ambidextrous and usually writes with his left hand. But I had this memory of him sitting at a desk writing with his right, and I couldn't remember what the movie is. So I'm trying to figure out what it was.... and then remembered him saying one of the lines of the movie. So I hopped on to IMDb and just as I was typing his name I remembered the movie. Looked for it online for a little while, finally found it via good ol' YouTube.I had expected, going in, a really wretched horrible movie; but had hoped to be at least somewhat entertained by Frazer. The man is really a fantastic actor; He always amuses me. So I thought, what the heck -- I watched The Air I Breathe last night, that was heavy. Let's have a Frazer fluffy movie (that's not Blast from the Past or the Mummy because i've seen them so many times) and had hoped to be, at least, mildly entertained.This is not a brilliant movie. But Frazer and MacLaine are absolutely wonderful and make the movie watchable.I just remember this movie coming out around the same time as While You Were Sleeping. Same basic premise -- following a confusion over identity, a lonely girl lies to family about who she really is because the family takes her in and she feels accepted for the first time in her life....This one has a baby in it.So, not original. Let's make that clear. Not believable. Not even that good a movie. However, Frazer and MacLaine are lovely and the movie has its moments -- like when Rikki Lake comes in the room asking MacLaine (who is smoking) who had been smoking in the room and MacLaine half-swallows the lit cigarette to avoid being caught. Or everyone constantly taking MacClaine's alcohol from her as well as her cigs. Cute little moments make it fun-- the Cuban butler getting drunk and dancing in the empty pool over a broken heart is a fun moment too.So, not original, not believable, not really great. But it's not nearly as bad as I remember. Frazer is fab at playing a snarky business man and there is definite chemistry between MacClaine and Frazer that make the whole thing not only watchable, but enjoyable if nothing else for them.A weaker story and someone like Lake who just doesn't have the magical charisma to stand up to someone like Frazer or MacClaine just reminds you what the movie is missing most of the time. If they'd cast someone with more charisma like Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping, I'd have been very interested to see Sandra and Frazer together.Anyway, it's a good fluff, don't expect much and you might enjoy yourself. It's not brilliant, it's not even great, but you know, if you just want a mindless fluff and watch Frazer being snarky it's good enough.

addylennox Because Brendan Fraser and Shirley Maclaine make it surprisingly bearable. Ricki Lake, God bless her, was, in a word, miscast; without the strength of Fraser and Maclaine, this movie is a two, at best a three. She's brings no life to the role, no reality. At best, she was an over-actor. At worst... well, she was a bad over-actor. A really, really bad over-actor. Still, for a movie that had so much potential (if not for the sometimes unbelievable -yet entertaining- storyline, then definitely for the two aforementioned lead actors) that was lost beneath the looming shadow that is Lake, I'd watch it again. If it were on cable TV... and if nothing else is on.

cruztacean I believe that those who are most vocally panning "Mrs. Winterbourne" are doing so because they simply don't like the genre of light-hearted romantic comedy. As a comedy, not a drama, and especially as a mistaken identity plot bordering on farce, it isn't *supposed* to resemble a true-to-life documentary, OK? I don't understand those who say Ricki Lake shouldn't have been cast in the female lead role. Why? Because she isn't some A-list skeletal blonde? She played Connie/Patricia admirably, and says that this is the role that made her the proudest to play. It was the first role, she said, where her weight didn't factor into the casting. Should she be sorry she's too "average looking" for some people's Hottiewood tastes? I don't think so. Who says ordinary women don't deserve love and romance too?We'll get the obvious out of the way first. Of COURSE Shirley MacLaine shines as Grace Winterbourne. That lady could play a seashell and be absolutely spellbinding. Of COURSE Brendan Fraser has women swooning over his Hugh/Bill Winterbourne. That's what Brendan Fraser does. It's the smaller roles that make the movie wonderful: Loren Dean is altogether tops as Steven DeCunzo, the abusive womanizing lowlife who fathers Connie's baby and then abandons her to the streets, ultimately getting what he richly deserves. Convincing? Hey, I wanted to smack him myself. Nesbitt Blaisdell stole the scene as the homeless man who befriends a very pregnant Connie. "They pray at you," he warns her about a particular shelter, "but the food's good." Miguel Sandoval is truly enjoyable as Paco, the butler. The only small problem here is that Paco's homosexuality is a trait I gathered only from script, not from character development. In other words, I just never would have guessed Paco was gay without it being said outright. For all I know Sandoval himself could be homosexual (I have no idea) and my saying that he doesn't believably portray one could be hilarious in its irony, but it just doesn't seem that way to me. What do I want, a stereotype? Probably. Farces are usually full of them. Farce is all about exaggeration, and exaggeration relies heavily on stereotype.My favorite scene in the movie has got to be the aftermath of the "Sunny Side of the Street" fiasco. Streetwise teenager tells catty blonde débutantes to "f--- off," leaving them flabbergasted with shock. That's funny enough, but then smooth, cultured, filthy rich family matriarch comes along behind her with, "You heard her. F--- off," which was one hundred percent hysterical.There's the scene at the train station where Paco delivers the line, "You are as much a Winterbourne as I am," putting a lump in my throat.I do have trouble with the wedding scene at the end. Connie stops the proceedings (and nearly stops the priest's pulse as well) by unexpectedly saying no. She, Patricia Winterbourne, does *not* take Bill Winterbourne to be her husband. "I, Constance Helen Doyle, do all that." And everything's back on again. My problem is that the marriage license would have read Patricia Winterbourne. They wouldn't have had time to correct it. Which, of course, would invalidate the ceremony, making Grandma Grace Winterbourne's closing line to baby Hughie--"They're married"--a false statement. Oh, no they're not. Also, I am forced to agree that Ricki Lake does NOT look like a character who just turned 18 years old. But hey, if I'm going to be consistent and say that farce isn't supposed to be completely believable, then we can suspend reality for those things too.To summarize, so what if Mrs. Winterbourne is a chick flick? Chicks are half the world's population, guys. Get used to it.