Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7748 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-07-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
• Dubbed in: French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Based on Anna Quindlen's bestselling novel, this is a mother-daughter and father-daughter story, two for the price of one. But director Carl Franklin also tries to inject a police-mystery angle that it neither needs nor will support. Renee Zellweger plays a young writer on the rise, who has finally got her break for a New York magazine. While home for a birthday party for her nearly famous writer father (William Hurt), she learns that her mother (Meryl Streep) has been diagnosed with cancer. Then her father does the unthinkable: he all but commands her to put her career on hold to take care of her mother and nurse her through her illness. Dad, a popular college professor who has never received the literary acclaim he always believed he deserved, essentially checks out--and daughter must play parent to her mother. Strong performances by Streep and Zellweger give this parent-child relationship the heart--and the anger--of the real thing, while Hurt seems slightly disembodied as the self-involved father whose needs have dominated both women. Still, the detective-story aspect (the film is told in flashback, as the cops try to discover whether someone slipped Mom a fatal dose of morphine) is a construct that could have been done without. --Marshall Fine

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
DVD 9
French\German\Italian\Spanish
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English\Dolby Digital Surround French German Italian Spanish
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dolby Digital Surround
Spotlight On Location
Trailer
Filmographies
Production Notes
Czech\Danish\Dutch\English\Finnish\French\German\Norwegian\Polish\Portuguese\Swedish

Synopsis
An investigative reporter whose sole aim in life is her career is called home to an emergency. Taking time out she leaves New York, her job and her boyfriend and moves in with her parents in Pennsylvania. Still intending to work on her recent story about a US Senator, she finds herself following a more important investigation into her own family life...

Customer Reviews

superb acting and a powerful message:judge not just from the surface or from prejudices
What a great movie!! I was quite amazed and I do not share the previous reviewers' views that this is a girlie or weeping movie.

Here a NY girl ( Renée Zellweger) who wants to make a big career suddenly finds herself back in her hometown where a family drama unfolds: Mum ( Meryl Streep) has cancer and slowly dies. The daughter is - through emotional blackmail of her father (William Hurt) forced to take care of Mum. However,she is daddy's girl, adores the great university professor and has no real connection with her mother who she regarded as the typical, a bit stupid and uninteresting mum who just takes care of the home. But the picture suddenly changes: the adored father turns out to be a mediocre professor and writer, egoistic and most of all very, very week. Mum however keeps this family really going, keeps most of all dad going, knows all but says less, but takes care of family and friends and gets things really done. In a marvellous played scene between Mum and daughter all comes out and she gives her daughter the most important lecture of her life. And the daughter understands...Even in death Mum is the strongest of all, because she takes her own life; daughter and father/husband are too weak to do it.

On the surface one cloud argue that this is a tribute to the "housewives-mum" and their role in the family. Yes, there is this element. But I feel, most of all, it is about looking behind the façade, judging not just from the surface or from prejudices. Good message! I like that.

The acting, especially from Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger is superb.

Great Girlie Film
I rented this from amazon rental, and I waited ages to see it, and it was so worth the wait. The cast was excellent, although not over the top. It was a gentle retelling of events, and it had me feeling various emotions of anger, sympathy, love and sadness. I am considering buying it as it so good value to buy as well. Please all girlies out there rent this film, not one for the men though.

A real weepie
This is a superb film which captures how important it is to be a family. When katherine developes cancer Ellen, an ambitious New York journalist, must return home and care for her sick mother. In doing so they develop a relationship which never before existed. Meryl Streep is wonderful and Renee Zellweger is in top form in this tale of family relationship that will have you reaching for the tissues every time.