L'honneur de la famille

Top notch film? No. Boring as hell? NO. This film will not appeal to people who have no sense of history, family, or the ability to sit still for more than five minutes and analyze something.

The film was fascinating, not always clear as to its intent, but an interesting journey with characters worth watching.

You have a father, a Holocaust survivor, who even in his own madness still believes in the quality of THINGS. In this case it's his publishing house which has been an imprint of quality work. There are, unfortunately, few places for works such as this in our times. Few people have the patience or understanding of quality and workmanship. Thus the conflict with one of his sons. His son wants the imprint to continue but with a much broader audience, quantity above quality. I don't believe it is even about money. It's about moving away from the past. Neither the father or children are completely capable of doing this. The past, the family, has a hold on all of them no matter how they deny it or try to move away from each other.

If you have an understanding of what we have lost by having everything being bought and sold to the lowest common denominator; a family dealing with madness of a beloved relative, and THINGS being valued above the love and respect of others give the film a try. If you have an attention span of a knat try something with Arnold. Some things are worth muddling through just for the rare glimpse of ourselves.

This film is an excellent substitute. I cannot believe someone would post that the "öld guy should be put in an asylum"....obviously they have never had a family member with a serious illness; Ron Rifkin is very good as Isaac, the publisher being driven out of business by mass market mega-bookstores; He primarily publishes Holocaust and historical books of value; not paperback trash. Other films have addressed this issue, but not in detail, and with sensitivity.

Timothy Hutton, Sarah Jessica Parker and Tony Goldwyn play the children, who are each affected differently by the father's illness; Timothy Hutton is excellent as the younger son, whose father doesn't approve of his teaching profession. Sarah Jessica Parker, while not my favorite, is believable as the young daughter who has a flighty career as a children's show host. Tony Goldwyn is very good as the oldest; the son with a head for business, who is constantly at odds with his father (Rifkin).

I will not divulge the story, but suffice it to say that the dialogue is well-written, the story is not sugar-coated, and there is an excellent score by Joseph Vitarelli, which makes the audience feel touched by the story.

I wish films like this were more highly publicized than trash for cash Bruce Willis or Schwarzenegger movies.This film gives the audience credit for intelligence; and it makes me believe that there actually are talented filmmakers not just after the bottom dollar.

I saw this movie just recently and was certainly disappointed ... not that I was expecting a masterpiece either but it was sooooooo long and uninteresting I nearly fell asleep at the 2/3's point ...

A whole lot of pointless dialogues going round and round ... discussions about some old book that we don't care for anyway ... annoying characters on the screen (like the author of that Holocaust book that made me cringe 10 times at least during the movie wishing he would shut up and stop whining about everything from the coffee he was drinking to the editors he was meeting) ...

The stubborn old man in the lead was also quite boring (not too mention hard headed) and then last part of the movie where he finally goes off his rockers (big surprise, pretty clear from the get go this guy has serious "issues" !) for good is really bad ... lots of scenes that made me think "oh, come on" and wish I could slap the old dude back into reality at once... or maybe send him to an asylum ...

I couldn't wait for this "thing" to end ... 1.5/5

The Main reason to see the film version of "The Substance Of Fire" is Ron Rifkin's splendid performance. He reprises the role he created on stage with great aplomb.It is however,one of the few reasons to see this film.The plot has been drastically altered from the original play,even adding major characters that did not exist in the original.The basic story remains, a Jewish Publisher and his slow decent into dementia brought on through his loss of control of the company to his son. But there it ends. The messages in this film are very clear,but the execution,direction and scripting destroy the impact of the original play.

I have to admit, I once began watching this and didn't get very far. But I tried again and found it very interesting - more interesting, at least, than the other poster. I thought Ronny Graham was hilarious as the elderly, cantankerous author. In fact, there was more humor in the movie than I imagined. Tony Goldwyn and Sarah Jessica Parker could easily pass as siblings, and the children of Ron Rifkin, but Tim Hutton didn't seem to belong to the same family. The most interesting thing to me, and perhaps a reason to watch it, was the brief scene of Goldwyn and Gil Bellows (as his boyfriend) dancing together.