Molly

This is a touching, bittersweet and wonderful film about an autistic woman who gains full use of her cognitive reasoning through an experimental procedure. Molly (Elizabeth Shue) is a 28 year old autistic who has been institutionalized much of her life. When the institution closes, she is left in the care of her self absorbed brother Buck (Aaron Eckhart). She is recommended for a new experimental procedure which transforms her into a normal young woman. As the story unfolds we see her grow from a child into a woman with many sweet and funny moments resulting from Molly's view of the world through childlike eyes. As her relationship with her brother grows, his transformation is as dramatic as hers.

The film was charmingly done with a coming of age quality about it. There were numerous comical and heart warming moments resulting from Molly's misperception of a world she is trying to make sense of.

The only thing working against this film is the fact that this ground has been retraced in so many ways that it suffers from the tendency to compare it to other films. It has elements of ‘Flowers for Algernon', ‘Rainman', ‘At First Sight' and ‘Awakenings'. It is difficult for a film to be fully appreciated when the viewer is mentally comparing it to all these other stories. That is a pity in this case because this really is a lovable story in its own right.

Elizabeth Shue gives us marvelous performance as Molly. Her portrayal of autism is realistic and endearing. She is so childlike that you really sense that she has the mind of a 3 year old. Later, as she transitions to the mind of an adult, she retains that childlike naiveté that gives the character a purity and wisdom that is fresh and free from cynicism. It was a wonderful performance that regrettably will not be seen by many since this film lives in obscurity as a single facing on the rental shelves.

I rated Molly an 8/10. On an emotional level, I really enjoyed it more than that, but I felt compelled to subtract a couple of points for lack of originality. However, if you enjoy human interest stories this one will certainly touch your heart.

(Credit IMDb) A bachelor becomes the unwilling guardian of his autistic, retarded sister; then an experimental treatment works a dramatic change in her brain and his attitude.

This movie is quite sentimental and sweet, but it's not quite skilled enough to do what it aspires to be. The storyline itself was actually rather endearing. I felt Elisabeth Shue did a decent job playing a mentally challenged autistic girl, and transitioned very effectively to a smarter person. Portraying an autistic person isn't easy. Elisabeth Shue is far from the problem here. She struggles a bit sometimes, but considering it was a huge leap for her dramatically, I feel she deserves props. It gets a bit too ambitious in the second half, not to mention I had a hard time warming up to the main lead (Aaron Eckhart) There was just something about him that felt off to me, despite OK chemistry with Shue. It tries to go for the typical heartbreaking finale which is full of sap and sentiment, but I found it to be way too conventional. I also thought the love story between Elisabeth Shue and Thomas Jane was slightly contrived. It didn't feel real to me, and I thought it was just thrown in there for the sake of it. It tries to be a sad, thought provoking film, but fails. It's certainly keeps your attention, but it's not as powerful as it likes to believe it is.

5.8/10

I must admit to being quite apprehensive about seing this movie as i had read quite a few dreadful reviews,some of which singled out Elisabeth Shue's portrayal of the title character as being cringeworthy and even worse,bordering on offensive. Having now seen the movie i can happily say it was much better than i had expected. To start,i found all of the performances to be very good particularly that of Thomas Jane who played Molly's boyfriend and of course Elisabeth Shue.Initially it was quite hard to accept her in this role because (Leaving Las Vegas excepted) other characters she has played were quite bland and uninteresting.As Molly she convinces incredibly well,displaying a wide range of emotions from childlike innocence to extreme anger and frustration, not to mention a handful of well played comic moments. Other plus points include a nice music score by Trevor Jones and a conclusion that doesn't go overly mushy yet still leaves you moved. If i had anything negative to say about Molly it would be that at times it seems quite rushed (apparently quite a few scenes were edited out),and that occasionally it is reminiscent of a T.V. movie. All in all while not an excellent movie, Molly certainly isn't terrible and i would definitley recommend it.

I really wanted to like this movie but after 20 depressing minutes I started to play with my cat and do housework. The acting is mediocre and some performers are wasted. I feel this is probably due to the choppy editing which confused me. It seemed like whole sections were missing from the movie making me wonder did I miss something. The story was done much better in a wonderful film called "CHARLEY" with Cliff Robertson based on FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. Apparently the movie premiered on airplanes and that should be a warning that the film is pretty awful. Elizabeth Shue gives a fine performance as the lead character and in some scenes she is quite touching. On the whole the best thing about watching this movie was I got to clean my apartment.

I recently rented Molly and i loved it. Mainly because of Jill Hennessy but also because of the character Molly. After about 30min thru the movie you start to think about how it will feel like being autistic then Molly eventually tells how it feels. The movie is funny, dramatic, interesting and a very beautiful movie. The only thing that i did not like about the movie is the ending.