She's So Lovely

Maureen is a bit strung out and pregnant from her low-life husband Eddie. Their lives are an unpredictable mix of actions that mostly involve drinking and scamming round on the fringe of society. When Eddie is "away" for a few days, Marueen falls in drinking with neighbour Kiefer, who tries to rape her but then just beats her. She explains this away to Eddie so as to keep him from going crazy at her or anyone else but when he does start to flip she calls the paramedics to take him into care for his own safety. However when he shoots one of them, Eddie is sentenced to a mental institution. When he comes out he finds that Maureen has divorced him and has moved onto a much more stable and reliable man in the form of Joey, with whom she has had more children.

Almost halfway in it becomes evident that this film isn't going to work out that well because, before the "10 years later" jump, the love between the two leads hasn't been established to a convincing degree. Given that the narrative is using this mutual attraction (despite all the negatives) as its lynchpin this is a bit of a problem. Other than establishing that both are unstable and using each other for meaning, the film doesn't do that much for all the time it takes up. The second half isn't that much better as Eddie comes out as a sort of watered down Rainman and disrupts Maureen's new relationship with Joey. The script then asks us to swallow that she still loves Eddie to the point where the mere news that he is released sees her flush the last ten years down the toilet.

I can sort of understand what the script was trying to do but it didn't manage to produce anything interest in the aggressive relationships that it paints in the gutter. The characters are where the main failing is. Maureen's character is poorly defined and Wright-Penn doesn't appear to understand what motivates her character and thus turns in a really mixed performance that pushes emotional buttons in each scene but is never consistent. Eddie is OK in the first half of the film as he just seems like a drunk unstable loser but in the second half he is unconvincingly soft. Likewise Penn is strong in the first half but he is unconvincing in the second. Their performances aren't helped by a weird mix of tones – at times a dark love story, at other times a cringingly awful "comedy" complete with "jaunty" music being played over a fight on the front lawn or that horrible scene at Joey's bar. Travolta is a bit better and Stanton is a reasonably nice addition in a small role.

Overall this is a shocking mess of a film that spirals downhill from the mid-point onwards. The first half shows potential but doesn't manage to pull off the formative stages of the central relationship and thus fails to set up the second half. However the second half isn't helped by poor development and a terrible mishmash of "comic" moments that simply feel crass and out of place – I suspect even if the first half had been a stormer, this second half would have been poor enough to drag it all under. Even the acting talent seems all at sea and unsure of where they stand or who they are. A load of rubbish with little or no value.

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.

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.

I saw this film earlier in the year expecting some ordinary performances but most of all to be really twisted thanks to Nick Cassavetes. I'll say this, the movie is a little twisted but the acting was anything but ordinary.

Robin Wright Penn plays off her character, Maureen and her real life husband so well that it effects her performance of a mobster's poor girlfriend.

James Gandolfini is great as a sleazy, creepy neighbour Kiefer, another great portrayal from James even though he isn't that big of a character. He's done so many different films but it always seems to be him who sparks up the film. He was great as the father in "The Mighty" he was fantastic as the gay hitman the disappointing "The Mexican", as the tough Bear in "Get Shorty" and i'm sure he's going to be magnificant in the next Coens movie / musical. He never seizes to amaze me.

But the real gem here is Sean Penn as mobster Eddie. I know he won Best Actor at a festival, to which i'm not so sure but he shines in this movie. His love for Maureen is really sweet as he'd do anything for her, whatever it takes. There's this one scene with Sean and Robin where Sean displays some incredible acting ability. I haven't seen "I Am Sam" yet but i heard that it isn't that great of a movie but he must have done something right to earn an Oscar Nomination. I only hope he doesn't get washed up because it really would be a pity.

Travolta played a character simular to the evil Sean Archer in "Face / Off" but times 10 in this. He plays Joey but in order to explain his character would spoil this movie. Even though he only appears for the last 20 or so minutes, you have to remember this was the kid "Saturday Night Fever" and Danny Zuko from "Grease". He remains one of a kind and shows that he can pull off playing a bastard good too.

The story is not the greatest but it is a sweet movie that has violent turns. The screenplay has it's moments but it's the actors who make the movie. To simply put it... It's So Lovely!

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!