Chickory

This is a sweet little movie about how love is a major factor in everyone's life, for better or for worse. There are many stories going on here and I think fewer would have been better, though I cannot say which ones would have been the ones to cut. The nice thing about having so many stories is that it brings home the point that everyone has issues and something going on, even if their lives look settled and perfect from the outside. There was something to love about each of the stories. Ann Hathaway can really do dialects. That was just fun! I thought the 2 Taylors' interview scene was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. I laugh a lot every time I think of it. There were some really great moments in each story and a couple of really memorable lines. It is an enjoyable movie. It is not attempting to be the dark movie about the futility of life or enlightening us about some complete mystery. It is a light piece about probably the biggest driving force of our lives.

Carson shines in his role here. He is part stylist & part therapist. To say these women are dissatisfied with their looks before he works with them is a gross understatement. Many of these women are paralyzed by their misery over how they perceive themselves. Carson does not just get them into better clothes & hair styles, he makes tremendous progress with them in getting them to see the positives about their physicality. Although this is a remake of the English show of the same name & it seems I usually prefer the original to a show's remake, Carson's version is much better. He is so funny and warm and just loving toward these women. Many of these ladies are heavy and just about hate themselves because of that. In our society, that is no surprise. Somehow in the USA we all want to eat way more than need, but we all demand that we all look hot. Not usually possible. One of my favorite episodes was with the absolutely gorgeous woman who was so ashamed of her looks that she dressed only in black & wore sunglasses everyday all day. By the end of the show Carson had given away all her sunglasses, she was wearing beautiful colorful clothes, was smiling nonstop, and seemed so relaxed to have that burden off her back. I hope there are more episodes coming.

I first saw this movie in 1983 when I went out west to see my boyfriend. He was a river runner & was living in a house full of the same. Because river runners are in & out of the house on multi-day trips, many people used the house as their crash pad between trips. The point is that the house was full of people. This came on HBO and a bunch of us watched it with rapt attention. Later that day, it came on again and we all sat there and watched it again! How good is a movie when a house full of people watch the same movie twice in one day! I have never understood why more people have not heard of or seen this movie. It is wonderful. It is not a slam bam action movie, it is more about character and how people evolve through interaction with others even though external events may not allow for it. I have never forgotten this movie and I am going to chase down my own copy.