Introducing the Dwights User Reviews

This movie is billed as a comedy. That could not be farther from the truth. I have always liked Brenda Blethyn's acting--have watched her over the years, and so was excited to see this. Really, really awful. The story between Tim and Jill is about as unbelievable as Bush's re-election. It has no credibility: no story, no realness, no reason for a/Tim who at least SEEMS to have some compassion and sense to be attracted to a young woman who clearly has some significant emotional problems (i.e. she bursts into tears when he, a virgin, refuses to have sex with her the first time she intiates it. She takes it as a very real sign that her breasts are too small.), b/Mark, whose incapacity is so unclear the viewer is not sure whether he is mildly retarded,has emotional problems of his own, or has Cerebral Palsy but no mental affliction. He is witty and funny,and almost campy in his portrayal of Mark--how does this figure with someone who supposedly was deprived of oxygen at birth? One never really knows. c/Mom, alcoholic, narcissictic, and who is almost incestuous in her attachment to her sons, but, seemingly lovable despite it all. Through all this is a side story about a neighbor across the street who is dying of breast cancer--certainly sad, but the point of her presence in the story is never made really clear. The ending is a farce, a cloyingly uncomfortable and highly unreasonable metamorphosis of Mom from repugnant to repentant--with total acceptance from all those she has betrayed and hurt in the past. This movie hangs together like so many bits of celluloid strung with duct-tape: a few genuine moments interspersed with great discomfort and distaste from which the viewer can't escape. Yuck.

05/22/2008, 10:43 am