She's So Lovely

I suppose that the point of this movie is that love, and people in love, are not necessarily very "proper" and jasmine-smelling. Fine, I agree, but by the time the movie ended I was not sure it was love this movie was about. Quinn and Mrs. Quinn amply deserve each other that there was hardly any point in making a long movie to demonstrate that. The pity is, that the movie was well done, well directed, with some nice touches; the actors were also good, but the script, or rather, the characters are a mess. In any case you might even tolerate the failures of script and characters but it is impossible to get past the inanity of the protagonist Mrs. Quinn: she just doesn't make sense. In the second part of the movie Mrs. Quinn is as messed-up as in the first part, only ten years, a new marriage, three children and a change in her social standing are supposed to have happened in between; nevertheless, only her clothes and her makeup have changed. How can that be? I am not the same as ten years ago, and not so many things have happened to me. Also, she's supposed to be the pivot of the whole conflict, but she's not solid enough to justify that.

As a filmmaker John Cassavetes was always challenging his audience. He wanted to shake people out of their traditional patterns of the way people watch movies. He wanted to constanly stay one step ahead of viewers and challenge them to keep up. If you know this, any Cassavetes movie is a rewarding viewing experience. If you are unaware of this, you will surely be lost like so many reviewers I've read here are. SHE'S SO LOVELY is Nick Cassavetes paying tribute to his father's unique and often misunderstood style. The characters, like real people, do not know what they are going to do from one moment to the next. This is what makes the movie so funny, unpredictable - and so honest and true to life - that it makes some uncomfortable. Alot of critics have stated that it is unrealistic that a mother would ever leave her family under the circumstances presented here, but until you've been in a similar situation how can you really say? At any rate, one thing you can never accuse this movie of being is predictable. John Cassavetes often recut his movies even when people liked them. If he were still alive, he would probably be delighted to read all the negative reviews here, because they all point to one thing: Cassavettes has done it again. He has shaken people out of their set ways of watching movies and no one seems to be hip to it - yet. Like any great jazz artist, the work of John Cassavetes may be misunderstood at first, but finds it's audience eventually. He is somewhere laughing, knowing he has done his job. If you don't agree, keep this review in mind and watch this movie again/for the first time. Like all of his films, SHE'S SO LOVELY improves with repeat viewings.

I think this is a good movie. The characters are fresh enough, the plot avoids Hollywood cliches quite successfully. The movie says that crazy people have the right to love, too, and it shows how they realize this right. It is another answer to the questions: what is love and do love and morality have a lot in common. The weakest point is the ending scene. First, it made me feel that something needs to be added - a cue, a situation, anything - and, second, it resembles "The Graduate" too much. The last scenes of the "10 years ago" part are very good, Nick and Sean!

Some of the people who "review" flicks here continually amaze me with their complete lack of film knowledge.

When I heard an interview with the always-extraordinary Sean Penn, in which he said he was upset that so few people had seen what he considers to be his best work: this film and the excellent "At Close Range," I knew that I had to catch this.

Then, finding that it was based on an unproduced John Cassavetes script, I was all the more eager.

That final statement should scare off anyone who expected a happy, romantic Hollywood film, as they clearly haven't seen any of the late writer/director's stark, realistic films. Cassavetes' work relied heavily on tortured, unlikable or unredeemable characters who can act their brains out [quite often portrayed by his wife/widow, Gena Rowlands].

We're talking serious fare, folks ~ required viewing such as "Husbands," "Woman Under The Influence," "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Gloria" [the brilliant Rowlands original, not the adequate Sharon Stone remake].

Now comes his former B-movie star & son, Nick, who dusts off papa's script and enlists the type of actors who are eminently qualified to play a group of true undesirables: Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, James Gandolfini, Harry Dean Stanton, Debi Mazar and the newly-retalented John Travolta, who appears in the last reel.

Even Mom [Rowlands, of course] gets a small but important role.

And the adorable Kelsey Mulrooney, playing Penn & Penn's nine-year-old daughter is terrific without stooping to precociousness.

Is this a brutally honest film? Yep. Is it vulgar in nearly every way? Of course. Do the leading characters have any chance of redemption, moral or otherwise? Not likely.

Do I care?

Let's just say that there's more passionate acting in "She's So Lovely" than was evident in nearly every other 1997 film.

And that's certainly good enough for me.

So there.

None of the major characters in this movie is particularly redeemable, yet it remains a fascinating film. Eddie (Sean Penn) is a hard-drinking working guy, devoted to his friends and passionate about his wife Maureen (Robin Wright Penn). Eddie's mentally unstable; he has a very weak grasp on the concepts of time and space, and thus often vanishes for days at a time without realising how long he's been gone (and without understanding why Maureen worries about him). Maureen is equally passionate about Eddie; but he's been gone for three days at the start of the film, and their neighbour Kiefer is pleasant and more importantly -there-, and she accepts his offer of drinks and later of dancing. Kiefer pushes it too far, however, and though Maureen tries to keep the truth from him, Eddie finds out. His tenuous grasp on mental stability snaps at this point, and this is really the climax of the film.

As has been mentioned before, this is not an Oscar-winning film. Not because it's not excellent -- with a script by John Cassavetes and command performances by both Penns (spectacular, really, both of them, in roles that would have been poorly played by clumsier actors) and John Travolta, and excellent supporting roles all around -- but because it isn't a Hollywood movie about Good versus Bad, with Good ultimately triumphing. People don't make good choices. People aren't particularly "good" parents. What ultimately happens isn't supposed to happen in the movies. But it does, and it's true to the characters, and it lifts this film up above the usual sugar-coated drabble we're so often fed by the cookie-cutter that is Hollywood.