Love & Debt

As a fan of real issues portrayed in movies, where families experience the highs and lows of modern life and its challenges, I found Love & Debt very engaging.

The script is well written and the actors do a fine job of drawing you into their world and their emotional journey. It is indeed true that we all now live far beyond our means, swimming in debt, and ready to dismiss or abuse those trying to collect. The most important things in life are family and happiness. Be satisfied with where you are and what you have, but keep working at it because every day presents a new possibility to ruin or success... this story shows it well.

If you are a fan of The Story of Us, Parenthood and other similar takes on the struggles of raising a family, then you should enjoy this film. Not sure why the low rating. I couldn't fault the movie (and I watch hundreds each year)! Sit back with your partner, after the kids are asleep and enjoy the emotional rollercoaster of Love & Debt.

This is a move about a family coping with household debt, a subject that is rarely dealt with honestly in cinema in spite of the central role financial stress plays in most modern lives. The themes are heavy but the film has a light hand, 'Love and Debt' makes some very timely points in the way that films should, not by telling us all about them but by showing us real, flawed characters in action as they try to cope with what life brings them and struggle to rediscover their true priorities. The cast is outstanding and full of familiar faces. The entire cast delivers complete and compelling characters that never strain or reach to hit an emotional moment. The excellent cast benefits from the well crafted script and the confident directorial hand provided by Valerie Landsburg. Her cast is as honest and unpretentious as her own directorial style Supporting characters are fully drawn and given moments to shine. I especially enjoyed the understated acoustic score which softly supports the narrative and helps move the story forward without intruding on the moments, the actors or the audience's own process. This is a well realized gem of a movie, every aspect of the film making is top quality, sound and photography, editing and design. I strongly recommend 'Love and Debt' to anyone whose ever balanced a checkbook.

I was moved by this indie about a family fighting to find their way back to one another when debt splits them apart. You'll likely find the humanity reflected between the people who owe money and those going after them as interesting as I did. I found the mother daughter relationship especially touching and was particularly impressed by the teen daughter's acting skills. A good watch, I recommend it.

The production is fine but the general film itself is lacking any kind of personality. This one will age really badly all things considering, skip this even if you're a casual viewer as you'll find nothing.

Overall it was an ok movie, not bad and not good either, just ok. But it could have been so much better, like lots of other American movies it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a comedy or a drama. Too bad because it was so boring at times. And then this debt collector character, so unrealistic, so soft.