TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Galina The movie tells the story of two young girls whom their mom brought to her home town in the Pacific Northwest and committed suicide at the same day. The girls stay with their proper and respectable grandmother but after her death, their aunt, eccentric, literally out of this world Sylvie arrived after long time to take care of her nieces. There is a mystery behind Sylvie's smile, behind her strange for the most population of the small town behavior - she collects empty tin cans and used newspapers, she loves to walk alone and to visit train station and a nearby mountain lake. Christine Lahti is the center of the movie as a lonely gentle woman who has lived through many disappointments and failures it seems and learned how to choose what is really important for her and not to pay attention what anyone would think of her. It is easier to live this way but Sylvie will have to learn how to get closer, to connect, and to love again. As time passes, one of the girls, Lucille is embarrassed by her aunt and leaves the house to live a normal life. Her sister, Ruthie, a shy, quiet and insightful girl identifies with Sylvie's longing for freedom and chooses to stay with her. There are gentle kindness, quiet sadness, the spirit of freedom and adventure, unspoken words, bitter disappointments, failures, search for love, for understanding and belonging in this movie. Christine Lahti is great - watching her reminded me of two remarkable movies, "Running On Empty" where Lahti played one of the main characters, the mother and wife in the family that had to be on the run and the devastating and profoundly moving "Vagabond" by Agnes Varda, the tragic search for absolute freedom.

Charlie-209 Years since I saw it in the moviehouse or video. NOT a comedy in the yuk yuk sense. I only wish I could have been on the set to say, "Bill, Focus more on the girls, not the aunt! You did them both so well!" It was just a question of balance in this absorbing movie. Christine Lahti had such a good, strong performance and Forsyth let her take the movie, or at least gave many viewers the idea that her character's the focus. Stunning scenery, wonderful evocation of family and place, and fascinates with its exploration of watery metaphors for our connection to and removal from people. Very faithful in tone to the book (a must-read by marilyn robinson, BTW), which I read after seeing the movie more than once. I wish I could see it on the big screen again.

pjmurphyjr The way this movie ends with the shot of the railroad tracks - reminded me of the way in school they ask two parallel lines ever meet? Mathematically the answer is no but visually it's hard to believe. That dichotomy is at work here in what you feel has been done will happen.The ambiguity is refreshing when most movie makers or studios feel that `happy' or obvious ending are the only thing an audience will take.I was so moved by this movie I also read the book which is as wonderful... A total total joy.

adam1117 Though the box (identifying it as "A tidy comedy") is one of the most flagrant cases of false advertising ever, this is a wonderful movie. Set a bit after 1960 (you can tell because the song the mother sings in the ten-years-before opening was a hit in 1950) in a small town that hasn't caught up with the rest of the world yet, it shows a woman who isn't so much a free spirit as a person who just can't settle into basic routine. Mentally ill? Maybe, maybe not. But, if so, it's a pretty swell madness. Beautifully shot, wonderfully acted. Haunting is an excellent word. Just don't get it expecting a tidy comedy, whatever you do.