Gefühle, die man sieht... - Things you can tell

This film consists of several different stories that are very loosely connected to each other. I was drawn into each individual story but would have liked to have known more about them. What would have made this film really good in my opinion is if there had been a single strong story line woven through all the stories; an interconnection that would have kept the coincidence intact, but would have made it an unseparable whole. That is what I missed. I am very happy though that at the end there was a kind of closing to each of the stories, but that really deserved more time. So a good film, with interesting characters and good portrayals, but it lacked the depth and interconnection that it made me both expect and hope to find.

This was okay, I can't fault any of the performances and the 5 (loosely) interconnected stories are well written, imaginative (in a creative writing type way) and interesting however it still failed to grab me on any level or leave a lasting impression.

The vignettes all deal with dramatic developments in the lives of a diverse group of women, most of whom are lonely and or unhappy. All the performances are fantastic and at times raw opening with Glenn Close as a doctor looking after her invalid mother, Holly Hunter as a bank manager dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and an observant street woman, Kathy Baker as a single mother debating a romance with a new neighbour, Calista Flockhart is a tarot reader whose girlfriend is dying of cancer and police detective Amy Brenneman examines her loneliness when her blind sister Cameron Diaz begins dating.

There are some beautifully shot scenes here especially the outdoor ones although I was distracted by the random black cloudiness that appeared at the top of the screen from time to time. Like most people I thought there was something wrong with my copy of the movie. Not sure what that was supposed to signify.

I also think this could have benefited from more of an arc tying all the stories together (like the suicide woman) as it was I failed to see any connection. 5/31/15

A look at the lives of several different women in five separate stories. Writer-director Rodrigo García isn't indifferent to the characters he's depicting--one can sense that he wants to dig to the very core of a woman's emotional being with these portraits--but his chapters are handled oddly, in clinical fashion. Garcia also fails show off his star-actresses to their full advantages, particularly in the cases of Calista Flockhart and Holly Hunter--both weakly used. Of the group, Cameron Diaz is the most surprising, delivering a focused, balanced portrayal of a blind woman (her crying scene, shot in close-up, is quite stunning); however, these ladies aren't the living, breathing, suffering people they're meant to be. This unreleased theatrical feature, facile though it may be, was certainly a step forward in showcasing great femme talent, but the end result is a mixed-bag. ** from ****

Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia's feature film debut "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" might have a jarring, if too long, title, but the son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez presents a passionate work of cinematic fiction. The film presents several short stories; snapshots of women at a crossroads. One story is of a doctor who has lost sight of spiritual meaning in her life, and has elicited the assistance of a tarot card reader to help her find her way. This card reader may assist people with getting through the future with clarity, but she has one foot in the past as she watches her girlfriend succumb to a debilitating disease.

Each story intersects and overlaps the others in unique and interesting ways. The all-star cast of female talent bring to their deliberately under drawn characters some of their strongest performances, especially Calista Flockhart (at the time, fresh from "Ally McBeal") who provides her psychic character with fairy-like innocence, Kathy Baker who brings good-natured humorous curiosity to a role that could have quickly become a sociopath stalker, and Holly Hunter in an understated performance as a bank owner who contemplates the ramifications of motherhood on her life.

The rest of the movie was a little too self-consciously "arty' for me, but Holly Hunter's performance made it all worthwhile. Her scene on the street was absolutely heart-stopping in its truth. The depth of her emotion is almost an embarrassment to watch. Wonderful stuff, Holly...