You won't be disappointed!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is an uneven, unfocused film that can not decide whether it is an intense drama of guilt and redemption, or a family film about...a girl who races horses...or ponies...or..?What I find incredible about this movie is that it included an all-star cast and still managed to create something very mediocre. Dennis Quaid, as always, is excellent. Kyra Sedgewick can not help but be great in any film she is in. Robert Duval, though rough-hewn in this film, is characteristically intense and impressive.This is not Julia Roberts' strongest role, but it is not her fault that her character was written as weak and confused.I'll have to admit that I am not very familiar with Gena Rowlands' work, but after seeing her in this picture, I would like to see more of her. The title of this movie is just downright stupid: In no part of the movie is anyone "talking" about anyone else.The scenes vaccilate from intense and heart-wrenching, straight into spritely and fun, and this would be considered emotional manipulation and desensitization if it were not so thoughtless: The movie just has no focus, bouncing from Peyton Place to Walt Disney and back.If Something To Talk About had been a serious drama about infidelity, I'm sure it would have been all-the-better, centering on Quaid's and Roberts' characters and relationship. The film is so unwieldy it actually managed to turn Robert Duval's character into a vile distraction. Because of the calibre and sheer volume of talent squandered on this film, director Lars Holstrom never should have been allowed to have worked in Hollywood again. He redeemed himself in 1999 with Ciderhouse Rules, though.Likewise, musicians Graham Preskett and Hans Zimmer should have been run out of Hollywood for their incongruous, distracting inclusions.I am trying to forget about this film.

This movie had all the essential elements at hand, but somehow it doesn't come together. The main reason is the poor direction by Lasse Hallström. He has done solid movies before, I'm a big fan of Chocolat, but unfortunately he comes off as an amateur here. The viewer never gets a feel for the "geography" of the setting. Important little interactions are barely visible -- for example, when Jamie offers Grace another drink, and she grabs his, it is a potentially comical and telling moment that isn't even on screen. (I couldn't figure it out until watching carefully during the second viewing -- did she grab the bottle? did she take her empty glass? Eventually it appears she has a glass in hand with liquor still in it.) The little girl's acting seemed to be left to chance, and chance didn't do a good job for her. There is frequently a lack of realistic presentation in the sequence of action. One minute Eddie can't breathe after being kicked in the balls, 10 seconds later he is walking normally into the kitchen. The potentially hilarious scene at the women's "cookbook" meeting, when Grace demands to know who else has slept with her husband, was almost ruined by Hallstrom's failure to coordinate line-response. The audience gasps before Grace finishes speaking the essential words in her question. In fact, that whole scene, with its unrealistic, one-dimensional characters, ultimately comes across as condescending toward women.Another fundamental problem with this movie is the plot. Callie Khouri is nothing less than a brilliant screenwriter, but I think she handicapped herself here with post-T and L fears of accusations of "man-hating". Understandable, given the public platform given to all the scary men loudly objecting to the depiction of a woman shooting a rapist ["dear God!"] Callie Khouri's strength is her honest, cut-the-gloss depictions of painful male-female relationships, along with the comedy she brings forth through allowing women an instinctual response to abuse. In this script, however, those moments of comedic and tragic honesty are kept in cages, so that there are little gems scattered throughout, but the movie as a whole does not reflect her native talents.

I was very entertained by "Something to Talk About." I didn't consider it a big, important movie, I just took it as light fun. I have read some of the other comments, and it seems not everyone reacted to it that way.I thought this was a great cast. Robert Duvall and Gena Rowlands were fabulous, as was Kyra Sedgwick. Dennis Quaid is beyond adorable - and there is one of the flaws in the film. How could you trust that man for one second and be surprised when he cheats? The other flaw is how he managed to be in college with Julia Roberts, unless she was a child wunderkind. As for Julia Roberts, I prefer her in this kind of film rather than heavy drama, because I don't care for her very external acting. She was more believable in this and, especially at the end, she sparkled.I personally loved the ending, and for all you who wonder, I absolutely think they get back together. I think infidelity hurts and yes, it maybe even hurts enough that, in the heat of anger, you might try to poison your husband. I also think you can get past it, and I think this character did.I agree that often, when women cheat in films, it's somehow justified and the man who cheats is vilified. In life, that's not always true. Life is a lot more complicated than that. Obviously, this was written from a woman's point of view. As I said, I took it for what it was. It was entertaining. I had to think when I watched "Camille Claudel."

This is a great "woman's" picture that is also very entertaining for anybody. Someone mentioned that Julia Roberts offers up a convincing southern accent. Well hell's bells, she's from Smyrna, Georgia. How convincing does she have to be! Set in Kentucky horse country, Julia Roberts plays a young wife and mother who runs her father's (Robert Duvall) horse business. She's a fine wife and mother, and a good business woman. One day while driving in town, she sees her husband (Dennis Quaid) kissing a pretty woman in a red dress outside his office building. Busted, Quaid finds himself kneed in he groin by his potty- mouthed sister-in-law (the adorably gusty Kyra Sedgewick) and thrown out of the house by his furious wife. Her husband infidelity turns her contained and comfy world upside-down. Daddy (who has his own issues with infidelities) is uncomfortable with his daughter's anger and insensitively insists that she overlook the problem and get on with her life. Mama (the great Gena Rowlands) who has been looking the other way for years, and is not in a position to offer any advice, tells her daughters that southern woman have been putting up with their philandering husbands for years. Sedgewick can only offer her own withering scorn to her parents (she lives in a house on her father's farm with no visible means of support and therefore is beholden to her parents), while she clucks sympathetically with her sister.Meanwhile, Robert's character has to move on. Her daughter, an excellent young rider, is nudging her to compete in horse competitions, which is is reluctant to allow. She's confused about her parent's separation. Julia is running the business, but her father constantly interfere, making her management decisions. The women in her local Junior League are condescending and smug in the knowledge that their marriages are safe as hers is not. Roberts has a brilliant comic moment telling her sisters that their husbands are cheating on them too!A contrite Quaid is on a mission to reconcile with his wife, but she is resisting. Taking the advice of her beloved Aunt, she mildly poisons her husband's dinner in an attempt to "teach him a lesson he won't soon forget." You know it's only a matter of time before she forgives him, but you enjoy her insistence that this is a serious breach of trust in their marriage, not to be ignored lightly, or forgotten. The film reaches a very satisfactory conclusion. Daddy is finally made to pay the consequences for his own extra-marital dalliances when Rowlands finally locks him out of their house. And he finally learns to respect his daughter and realize the psychic damage his flagrant misogyny has caused.This is a quiet gem of a movie and one of Julia's best. The cast is expert and Hallstrom's direction is fluid and detailed. Khalie Couri's screenplay is alert and adult. An earlier review chastises the Robert's character for "poisoning" her husband. She didn't kill him, nor did she intend to. But I think it's quite appropriate for her to make him feel some of the pain he's caused her. At the very least, he should have been discreet. Acting out his affair in public is just asking for trouble. And the women in this family make their men grow up. A throughly enjoyable movie.