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Director:
Jane Anderson
Cast:
Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Ellary Porterfield,
Frank Chiesurin |
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for thematic elements, some disturbing images and language. |
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Review:
 The
1920s was a very different world than nowadays. Writer Terry
Ryan's parents got married back then, and late in life she decided
to write a valentine to her mother and a poison pen letter to her
dad.
You see Evelyn Ryan(Julianne Moore) was much more intelligent than
her husband Kelly(Woody Harrelson) and it's clear that everyone of
their eleven children knew it. Kelly, who was a singer before he
was in a car accident that ruined his voice wound up being a
self-loathing loser, who could barely support his family as a
machinist, while Evelyn would enter advertising contests which,
due to the fact that she was a poet, she would invariably win, and
thus be able to afford the down payment on a house, a new
refrigerator, and all sorts of nifty goodies.
This, considering the age in which the memoir is set, would drive
Kelly to drink, which would in turn make him violent and smash
things up…something that was common during the depression and
afterwards for the working class couple with a hoard of children
to feed and clothe.
What's interesting is that except for Kelly, the family was rather
successful. All of them turned out quite fine, and with the
exception of one dramatic sequence at the end, where the second
mortgage is about to run out and if Evelyn doesn't win first place
in a nationwide contest, they'd lose the house, this whole thing
would be the average story of an average family in Nowheresville,
USA.
The special effects, which are used to illustrate how things
worked in those days, are quite effective, and generally liven up
what's a rather boring story. The acting is great, Moore and
Harrelson are in top form, as are the rest of the cast.
This is basically a chick flick that isn't for guys. Gals take
your friends, guys stay away.
Eric Lurio
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