Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Eric Curto I had recorded this on my DVR when it aired on Lifetime, being a fan of Amber Tamblyn, I figured I'd check it out. Come a few months later and I finally get around to watching it. What my initial reaction was how quickly things seemed to have been wrapped up. The story for those who haven't seen the film or didn't bother to read the synopsis goes as follows. Sarah Russell(Amber Tamblyn)is a young medical student who is given the bad news that she now has Leukemia, this prompts her to return home where her mother(Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and father (Daniel Clark)seem oblivious to why she might have returned. Another plot point this story is that Sarah had moved away after a tragedy occurred with her neighbors (Jennifer Ehle & Henry Czerny) youngest child while she was watching her. The performances in the film are pretty good, I loved Sarah's reactions and moments of regret and guilt she gives off, especially during the really dramatic moments. Lorraine, who's the neighbor that is still hurting from her daughters death also provides some great moments. My biggest issue with the film is how one moment things show nothing i close to being resolved an than everything is fine. Than the moment when the plot moves forward and gets more interesting than its suddenly over. I understand in the real world things are never certain and the ending we get shows she is at least accepting of her situation, but the main plot seems tied too nicely and rushed. Do I feel like this was a waste of my time, no, I found the film fun to watch and a great Hallmark Original Film. However, its nothing to run outside and tell your friends about. Its just a great time passer. So if you have nothing to watch and this is on, sit back and enjoy. Yes, I do realize how much Jennifer Ehle looks like Meryl Streep

yates-3 This is one of the best movies I've seen in years. While the "Matrix" crowd may consider the plot "slow," I consider it natural and unhurried. This movie rests on its WRITING and PERFORMANCE, not fancy graphics, nudity, or profanity. You can watch this show with your 3-year-old.Two families are caught in a very plausible conflict. There is a lot of judgment, anger, blame, self-loathing, and fear involved. The conflict rises to an almost intolerable level, but then is eventually resolved.Like many real-life conflicts and wounds, the Russell girl walls herself off in unhealthy denial and self-judgment. The family doesn't help either, with the mother blinding herself to the depth of her daughter's guilt. True to the self-righteous, self-justified attitude of humans in their worst light, the antagonist (Jennifer Ehle) had deepened the wound for many years, but with the artful interplay of emotions and relationships woven by Blotevogel, the wound is finally punctured and healed.My hat is off to Jill Blotevogel, Jeff Bleckner, Amber Tamblyn, and all the people involved in making this excellent film.

SpudV While one should not expect an Emmy award winner out of the movies Hallmark typically puts out, "The Russell Girl" was OK entertainment for two hours. I appreciated the lack of long commercial breaks. It was difficult to say if the lead actress, Tamblyn, made the movie slow down in parts or if it was just the script itself. It did seem to drag out as she kept playing a "keep-away" game of her secret from her family.Even though she was relatively young (early 20's) she had not resolved a major event that had happened five years ago, one she ran away from. This movie did fairly well in showing the results of not forgiving as well as the ineffectiveness of running away from a bad situation. It just seemed to take awhile to get to the ending that wasn't a surprise but was nice to see anyhow.The strength of the movie came in giving the audience a chance to examine their own lives, if given the news of having an "aggressive cancer". Would we accept it as some sort of karma for the bad things we have done? Would we try to right past wrongs? How would we spend the little time we have left? Considering the junk that passes for entertainment on TV lately (watching someone strapped to a lie detector for an hour?), I did not have any regrets using up two hours of my life on this movie.(A better Hallmark movie on forgiveness is "The Christmas Gift" with Neal Patrick Harris.)

jkantor Sappy story; sappy acting; sappy music - and to make it even worse, it's excruciatingly slow. Please shoot me.There is no story here, or character development or anything other than depressing music, long-faced actors, and interminably long scenes. By the first break, you don't even know what it's about - except miserably, self-absorbed people.And the typical movie-of-the-week production values don't add anything to it either.The only thing worse was the Hallmark commercial at the first break. But that, at least, was mercifully short. In fact, that's what this movie seems to be - a sappy 30-second commercial padded out to two hours.