Simply Perfect

Just perfect...

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I was going to be all apologetic for praising this film, but if you look at the ratings for this in detail you'll see that the MAJORITY of people give this film a rating of 5 and above. So how does IMDb arrive at its "weighted average" of 4.4? Ridiculous. Lots of '9's and '10's--and are we to think that all of those '5's, '6's, '7's, and '8's are put in to 'game the system'? Puh-lease.The only thing that keeps this movie from being a '10' for me is the fact that it's crazy plot developments keep coming and coming and coming, with a ton of false endings. It gives you a headache.But the utter brilliance of so much of this film--Deborah Rush as Trish the embezzler is, all on her own, worth the price of admission! The surprising twists with the Mary-Louise Parker character? The brilliant art direction, with its warped vision of our heroine's world as a winter wonderland in a snow globe gone mad? The plain old beauty of Stephen Dorff? There is A LOT to love about this movie. If you love movies, if you care about and are interested in movies as an art form, you will want to see this movie.It's incredibly funny, it's beautiful, it's strange, it's wearying. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't want to be everyone. If you're thoughtful, intelligent, and patient, you will appreciate the superb acting, film-making, and atmosphere this film provides.

Mia Farrow in an improbable tale of woe rivaling a Shakespearian tragedy for sheer unfortunate-ness. If this movie had a more revealing title I suppose I would call it "the nastiest of consequences for the most innocent and well-intentioned of actions." All the characters you like will be punished (not a spoiler - as we may not like the same characters). From bad to worse, from lonely to destitute, from depressing to macabre: this movie will make you feel better about you. Wherever you are, this lady is lower. The sympathy and camaraderie this movie generates for it's soft-spoken well-meaning heroine is the sharp tip that drives the depressing point home. The character's unwavering goodness in the face of (well I suppose it is rather conspicuous) misfortune is inspirational. Beautiful. I want to live again.

Walking out of the current (October 2004) revival of the Craig Lucas play I overheard a couple talking about the film version of the play and it suddenly came back to me why it all seemed familiar, I saw it on TV several years ago.The story of how a woman who's husband can't take her any more and hires a hit man to kill her, only to send her away before he arrives is a very strange story. No one and nothing is who they seem to be. And the twists and turns seem rather random. The whole bit about visiting every Springfield in the country is just plain dumb. The dialog is clever at times but mostly it seems forced. Worse is the fact that this probably should never have been made into a film. The play which is full of whimsey and is stylized does not translate into a film well. The actors are okay but many are completely wrong for the roles. The Goldwyn/Farrow coupling doesn't quite work so the story isn't believable from the get go.If given the choice of play versus movie go for the play where the whimsey works better, however you would be better off renting or seeing pretty much anything else.5 out of 10 for the bits that work.Side Note: Mary Louise Parker who plays Pootie and a couple other members of the cast of this film are in the current Broadway production. Obviously they are gluttons for punishment

Dark enough for anyone who enjoys the truly morbid and wretched. Puts the fun back dysfunctional and can brighten anyone's miserable Christmas. Thank gawd for offbeat comedies like this, which are closer to real life than most people would care to admit.