The Rest of Us

Overall the movie was pretty good. I don't feel the actresses had a chance to shine as much as they could have. It was a slow start and then a rushed ending. Just when it started getting interesting there was only about 30 minutes left. I think it would have made a good TV show. Overall I was left wanting. I believe this really had a lot of potential that was wasted.

A lovely small movie dealing with big life decisions.

The passing of a cheating, dead beat husband (cleverly absent on screen), leaves a pair of mother daughter teams struggling to cope with the aftermath. Unfortunate circumstances lead to an uncomfortable union of two reluctant female families joined at a virtual hip, sifting through various emotional messes. Thankfully "The Rest of Us" is no schmaltzy feel gooder, preferring to plot a realistic storyline in a most complicated situation.

In a career performance, Heather Graham is great as a well to do author, taking in her suddenly struggling successor, disrupting a seemingly utopian oasis. The awkward tension between former wives is balanced by their uppity pre and full teen daughters, who deal with the tragedy from very different angles, and very different ages.

As the unsympathetic mistress turned second wife, Jodi Balfour tackles a difficult role with a careful balance of devastation, guilt and determination. The seedy details of what went down is sketched over, and rightfully so. This movie is all about the present, and who exactly these people really are. It all rides on character discovery.

Filmed economically in a handful of small, closed locations, focussing solely on the four leads, "The Rest of Us" is a quick eighty minutes of exceptional cinema that offers much to think about. Superb.

• hipCRANK

This movie was better than I expected. While I'm a fan of Heather Graham movies, ordinarily they are rather quirky. This time the story contained well hidden twists which gave it a deeper resonance. Everyone was excellent and the two young actresses both stood out as well.

Cami (Heather Graham) and her daughter Aster (Sophie Nélisse) receive news of the death of her ex-husband and Aster's father. The new wife Rachel (Jodi Balfour) with her daughter Talulah get evicted and she reluctantly accepts Cami's offer to stay at her home.

It is a family drama of a different kind. It's a shorter Canadian indie. The story is intriguing with all kinds of cross currents. The overall theme of cheating is fascinating since the Craig is not there. These women have to deal with the aftermath and with each other. The writing could do with more humor and it could add some more drama for the third act. Maybe the daughters run off and the mothers can bond over the search. Nevertheless, this is an interesting little film with some interesting actresses.

I didn't think I'd enjoy The Rest of Us but I decided to take a chance on it. I love how the film evolved and how in such a short amount of time (90 minutes) the four characters connected. Several times I reflected on how I would handle a situation like this. I'd like to believe I'd handle it with the same grace as Cami but I don't know.