Well... almost. They both give terrific performances, but they just can't tug the weak material up to the level of their acting. For every tart verbal exchange between kooky mother Sarandon and overly mature daughter Portman, there's a painfully idiotic scene like the one where Sarandon pours out her life story to a cop who pulls her over for going through a stop sign. Or the funeral scene -- note to filmmakers: if you want to inspire sadness rather than amusement, I suggest you don't use a choir of bored teenagers singing a top 40 song at a mournful tempo in homage to their dead classmate. I actually felt more sorrow at Portman's not getting enough financial aid to go to an Ivy League school than at this funeral.
The whole movie feels pointless; nobody really changes or learns anything (and yes, I realize I frequently bitch about movies where folks "learn" and "grow," but there are ways to show it with more subtlety than an Afterschool Special). Sarandon's abrupt reversal of character at the end feels fake because nothing's prepared us for this selfish, if entertaining, woman to grow up.
And then there's the eye thing. For a good part of the movie, I was distracted by Susan Sarandon's odd choice of eye makeup, which made her look disturbingly like Endora from "Bewitched." And poor Natalie Portman is crying 75% of the time she's on screen, which is pretty understandable, given the circumstances, but still, it gets to be a little much. For heaven's sake, buck up, little camper!
I
guess I'm just not hard-wired for chick flicks. My heart doesn't
swell to the Lillith Fair soundtrack; my eyes are more likely to roll
up
than to well up when mother and daughter hug. When Sarandon says
"I love you" to a one-night stand, a gasp of horror doesn't escape my
lips.
And speaking of which, why is it that in every goddamn movie I see
these
days, there's at least one moron in the audience who feels compelled to
verbalize the emotions we're cued to feel? Like in this one,
Sarandon
finds in the day's mail a thick envelope from Brown University, to
which
she's specifically forbidden Portman to apply, and she gets a shifty
look
on her face as she looks at it... and from the audience clearly rises
"OH
NO!" My feelings exactly, dipshit.
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