SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

daveyd_2 I got stuck watching this absolute piece of crap and I am now writing about it to cleanse my soul. Once again I see that without good writers, even great actors, (MacLaine) wished they had called in sick or checked into rehab instead of appearing this achingly painful rehash of twenty different crappy movies already made.And, please, giving a makeover to Rikki Lake is like spraying Febreze on dog crap. You just can't fix that kind of ugly with a haircut and a band aid, sorry. I will never forgive the 'writers' or 'actors' of this petrified turd of a movie. So if this does come on make sure that you have caught up to your significant other and the massive amounts of wine they have drunk to find this celluloid enema entertaining!

ngc137 Connie Doyle (played by Ricki Lake) is abandoned on the streets by her former lover as she tells him that she is pregnant and does not want an abortion. Months later, in an advanced stage of her pregnancy and on the way to a shelter for the homeless, she enters the wrong train and gets involved into a chain of coincidences that finally leads to the end that, when the train crashes in an accident, she is mistaken for Mrs. Patricia Winterbourne, another pregnant woman, who loses her life under the shattered heap of steel. Because Hugh Winterbourne had married Patricia only a short time ago in distant Europe, never sent a photograph and is himself among the death victims, the Winterbourne family accepts the mistaken identity, at least at the beginning. Thus, when Connie wakes up at the hospital, she finds herself in a different world, as the member of a wealthy family and with a little son who is enthusiastically welcomed by his supposed grandmother.The main part of the plot that follows this exposition is what should be romantic comedy, from the time on when Connie meets Hugh Winterbourne's brother Bill. However the movie is neither able to create any romantic atmosphere nor does it come up with a single scene that I could find really comic. Of course there are situations that are quite absurd, but they did not make me laugh or even smile, because they were too directly and sometimes crudely contrived.All in all, the movie is not very original. It makes use of a large number of plot elements that we have seen fitting together much better in hundreds of comedies before. And what is absolutely fatal for a romantic comedy is that the central relationship does not work. We see two people come together because it is written in the script, not because they are drawn together by affection.The movie is obviously intended as a kind of Cinderella story for female movie viewers. At least this explains why Bill's part is played by a good-looking Brendan Fraser, while for Connie's part an actress with a more average look and figure was chosen. But it is hard for me to believe that the female perspective would turn this movie into anything worth mentioning, if it were not simply because Brendan Fraser appears on the screen. The only genuine reason for watching the movie could be the fact that Shirley MacLaine plays Grace Winterbourne, Connie's supposed mother in law. She is great as ever and therefore appears misplaced in a weak movie among actors who deliver only second-rate performances.

ann-166 One thing I have come to realise about any film is the importance of casting. Mrs Winterbourne had great potential and could have been up there with films such as While You Were Sleeping (excellent cast). Shirley MacLaine does her best and is the star of the film but Brendan Fraser, who despite being handsome and watchable, over acts. Poor Ricki Lake is out of her depth here and brings the movie down to an "average" film. As well as the casting problems the story is a bit like a bad hair cut. There seems to be chunks missing. The ugly duckling turns into a swan with a haircut and outfit - and this turns the heart of a man? Wow look out, I am in for a new do and outfit too! I really wanted to like this film - shame.

dbdumonteil The third version of William Irish's absorbing psychological thriller "I married a dead man",after Leisen's "no man of her own" (1950),starring Barbara Stanwyck, which I have not seen but would like to,Robin Davis's 1982 "j'ai épousé une ombre" starring Natalie Baye.That French attempt,although it did a lot of francs (no euros at the time),was a disappointment,because the heroine ,without her terrible guilty feeling,was devoid of interest, and because the scenarists felt compelled to secure a ridiculous happy end which the novel had not.William Irish's world is noir,desperate ,some of his short novels to rival the best of Poe.What about Richard Benjamin's work?It's an insult to the great writer who once gave Hitchcock "rear window" .You simply cannot turn an Irish tragic heroine into a Pygmalion/my fair lady character .Connie was not a crude vulgar woman,she was a frail girl who said to us at the beginning of the book-which like Benjamin's film is a long flashback- "We've lost;that's all I know,we've lost".Oddly the part of the father has been ruled out,probably to make room for MacLaine who gets here the lion's share .The director does not know what he wants to do,a comedy or a thriller ,and the movie suffers accordingly.Best performance:Baby Hughie.Since I wrote my comment I had the opportunity to see "no man of her own";It's the best by far!