Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good concept, poorly executed.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

British artist, broken-hearted over the dissolution of his engagement to a brash Welsh sexpot, comes to America to relieve his sorrows; he picks the city of Hope ("18,459 people live in Hope") to begin a series of charcoal sketches on the locals, and naturally meets a new girl anxious to help him get over his lost love. Writer-director Mark Herman, adapting his script from the novel "New Cardiff" by Charles Webb (author of "The Graduate"), begins his film with a few "Graduate"-styled visual touches which are quite clever (see if you can find them). His use of soundtrack music is a bit jarring, and the editing seems flagrantly sloppy in the movie's early stages, but these faults are quickly corrected as the characters take shape. In the lead, Colin Firth works his scruffy adorableness to wonderful advantage; with his slightly crooked mouth and low-keyed impatience, he's amusingly antsy and befuddled. The ladies in his life (Heather Graham and Minnie Driver) compliment Firth nicely, while the screwballs who dot the supporting cast are enjoyable without being overtly colorful. We've been down this road before (boy-loses-girl, boy-meets-new-girl, first-girl-comes-back), and a story thread involving a faked family tree doesn't quite come to fruition, but the rest of "Hope Springs" is daffy, frisky, and often funny. *** from ****

This film is about an English artist who goes to Hope in America to forget his sorrow after discovering that his fiancée is about to marry someone else."Hope Springs" is a light-hearted, bubbly, energetic and fun comedy. The story is vibrantly fun and engaging. It successfully balances between the typically English polite long-winded dialog and vibrant fun. These polar opposites clash together and create great chemistry. The main characters, Mandy and Colin are likable and sweet, which is essential in an enjoyable romantic comedy. I enjoyed watching "Hope Springs" a lot, I think it deserved to be a commercial success.

This must be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I watched it till the end simply because I love Collin Firth. It doesn't make much sense to me and doesn't make me feel anything. I'm kind of disappointed at Collin Firth's choice of movie. The character Collin in the movie was too easy to fall in love, well if it could be called 'love'. He didn't seem to love his fiancé as much as he claimed. I didn't understand the trick he played on his ex-fiancé at all. I must say it is a very shallow, boring, and incoherent movie and it was a waste of time to watch even though there was Collin Firth in it. I gave it 2/10 just for the fact that Collin Firth is the main character in the movie. I definitely won't recommend it to anyone.

Since I recently saw Colin Firth play Mr. Darcy in the A&E production of "Pride and Prejudice," I have been desperately trying to find him in something else that I might like and admire his role as an actor. I have watched at least 10 of his films with only a minimum of success.Sad to say, "Hope Springs" was definitely not the one or anything that I could admire. Firth, who has the ability under the right direction, to play an achingly lovable hero with chemistry and empathy such as in "What a Girl Wants," failed to live up to his potential in this movie.The script takes our British artist on an internal voyage of discovery to "find himself" after his recent breakup with his finance, played by Minnie Driver. During this discovery, he lands in an "American" town where the characters are all odd and extremely grotesque in their viewpoints – even to the heroine, played by Heather Graham, a "free spirit" who seems to be a lush and nymphomaniac.Within the first few minutes of the film, the heroine removes all her clothes to prance around naked and blatantly offers herself and her bizarre behavior to the hero. Within another few short minutes, they move rapidly to having animalistic sex with no caring.This movie, I would say, is a perfect example of the disgustingly male attitude that any woman is available at the drop of a hat and "long lasting" emotions are derived from your crotch! The heroine removes her clothes after getting drunk – end of the mystery.The characters move into a highly intense physical relationship – end of story.What was there left to see? There was no real conflict between the characters even when they added the ex-girlfriend back into the equation – except, of course, Colin's fidelity to his new sex partner. And how in the world can we see any long-lasting relationship continuing between the hero and heroine when it is obviously a case of rebound? But perhaps what I found even more disturbing and became furious about was the obvious portrayal of the American people as nothing more than over-sexed, greedy, avaricious, and disgustingly coarse.This led me to read the book, "New Cardiff," which although an easy read, was definitely written by a male who has no depth or sense of morality. Even at that, it gave closure that was not defined in the movie as to why the girl was drinking, of a somewhat decency of certain American people, and the Fisher family's caring attitudes – even several times mentioning Mr. Fisher's relationship with his son.Why, with Colin Firth's obvious talent for controlled scenes and build up of long lasting chemistry, would he submit to such a revolting characterization is beyond me? – However, he is, after all, an actor only, and probably was well paid.The music in the film was pretty good, though, and the autumn colors was filmed very well.