Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Wordiezett So much average

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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.

seeingbystarlight So writes Wendell Goddard about his parents, in this surprising little gem of a movie.The story revolves around three characters:Emma Riley (Holly Hunter), a charming, divorced woman who's been hired as a live-in housekeeper.Richard Goddard (Michael Moriarty), the old fashioned college professor who hired her.And his aforementioned troubled son Wendell (Kiefer Southerland), an aspiring poet who spends his days locked in his room.The death of Richard's wife Marion (Elaine Pidgen) has caused a rift between the two men.Wendell writes scathing, though not inarticulate, poetry about his unhappy home life.Richard, meanwhile, shakes his head at his son's instability.The arrival of Emma in their lives only makes matters worse as they're both attracted to the lovely woman (and she to them).Though just a little movie, the acting and direction are impressive, making this sleeper one of the best stories about a love triangle that I've ever seen. And there haven't been very many.Also adding to the story is Wendell's 24 hour wife Monica (Carrie Preston), who gives it unexpected levity.The ending really makes the movie, coming to a conclusion in a way that is satisfactory as well as very positive.This is one of my favorites.I'm really impressed that Kiefer Southerland was the director.Originally, Review #125Posted On: July 8, 2011

leplatypus This is the most soporific and stupid movie i have seen lately and it's a new stinker with Holly who didn't make a fine work since « the firm » ! For sure, as she plays a maid for a father and his son, you can guess at once what's the movie is about ! It's a sort of tradition that maids always fall in love for their rich and prestigious masters but i can't buy it ! I prefer to believe into their depraved habits when a son can indeed make love to his father girlfriend !! All this turpitude happens in a gloomy, austere mansion that stinks old ! This ridiculous family of crying men is badly played with Sutherland doing the adult poet kid in shorts (!) and with a poor nobody with zero talent as the father ! This one is in addition so tall that poor Holly break her neck to see him ! All along the movie, between doing chores and speaking around meals, she has nothing to do ! So it's a totally useless movie that doesn't worth any more comments !

pderocco Holly Hunter is skilful and charming as always, and Kiefer Sutherland is better than usual. Michael Moriarty is sufficiently different from his "Law and Order" role (the only thing from which I really know him) that I can see he's a capable actor, not just a TV character. But everyone's performance is perhaps a bit too unmodulated, with too constant a tone from start to finish. I also had trouble believing the sudden romance than blooms between Moriarty and Hunter. And the Billy Eckstine version of "Everything I Have Is Yours" that plays over the closing credits is such a clash with the flavor of the rest of the movie.I found the ending a bit disturbing, though. I'm not giving anything away that's not already in the IMDB plot summary, but I couldn't help wondering how this odd family would make out, with a newborn that could belong either to Moriarty or Sutherland. Will they teach the child that Sutherland is the father and Moriarty as the grandfather, or that Sutherland is the half-brother and Moriarty is the father? Perhaps not a stressful as "my sister AND my daughter," but awkward nonetheless. Sounds not like the end of the story but the beginning of another one.

mynerva It's really good to see Kiefer Sutherland working and directing. I was going to say "again", but he has been working steadily. I liked his source material for this emotionally satisfying movie. The plotline had a lot of potential for melodrama and all the actors avoid it. Maybe it was just nice to see Sutherland in something "normal".