I'm Losing You

A thoughtful movie can be influential and instructive in guiding us through the obstacles and sometimes true horror of life. This is that kind of movie, and, if not a great one....certainly a very fine one. It deserves a 10.

A few years ago I had read Bruce Wagner's novel with horrified fascination...and I was suddenly shocked to be seeing it as a movie here, late at night, in little flyblown Costa Rica on the Movie Channel...at first I thought it looked familiar, and then..."my god, it's "I'm Losing You!" I had not even known it had been made.

Such a sad loss to have had "Eyes Wide Shut" or "Blair Witch" suck all the air out of the room and leave "I'm Losing You" to the video cutout rackjobbers. This is a strong and corrosive movie, and so sad. Perhaps it is no wonder it had no 'hit' potential....but if one ever wants a slice of the LA urban dystopia as a part of their research project in the year 3000, they couldn't do better than "I'm Losing You."

Rosanna Arquette and Elizabeth Perkins are truly remarkable, but then so is almost everyone else who is in this very real, very serious, melanomadrama.

Thank goodness for digital cable. I never heard of this film until it hit cable. I really wanted to like it, I really wanted to get into it, but the minute it tried to get my attention, it turned right around and lost it. The actors were okay with the material they were handed, but I felt it could have been so much better! The characters, although there were many, didn't seem to go anywhere although I knew they had to go somewhere. They didn't intertwine, I wanted to get to know them and the moment that it seemed like I would, the story went somewhere else and I got uninterested. I watched the film twice (for that is all they've showed it so far) seeing if I was missing something but both times, I was left empty. I have to admit that reading the responses regarding this film has more information than the film itself.

My suggestion?? The director Paul Thomas Anderson should have taken this one as a project, I believe it would have stuck to the book more and been a hell of a lot better.

This movie was a mess. So many lines, so many characters, so little definition, so little logic. If I had paid I would have yelled for my money back. The performances were ludicrous. Andrew McCarthy was the pits. He gets the most stupid expressions on his face when acting. I guess you can guess I give this one a resounding '1'. Sorry, but I was unable to go lower.

I truly enjoyed watching this movie, which is driven by the people in it - I'm looking forward to reading some of Wagner's books now. The cast and characters are excellent, and I love it when I discover a movie that is driven by the people in it, rather than the explosions or car chases. Highly recommended.

Illness, death, and a family's reaction to it have been the subject of a multitude of films, but the potential there for high drama is so great that the vein could hardly be exhausted. When I first started watching "I'm Losing You" (and no, I didn't read the book) and saw Frank Langella's character receive his terminal bad news, I assumed the focus would be on him and how his family handled the crisis. I was surprised, then, when it turned out that the Grim Reaper was all over the place, stalking characters major and minor.

Which would have been fine if this film had been the great meditation on death and dying that it so obviously wants to be. Maybe there just wasn't enough time to thoroughly develop all the characters and plot elements, but I surely wouldn't have wanted a longer film. Consequently nothing in it really reached or impressed me. Particularly poorly handled, I thought, was Rosanna Arquette's character, whose mental breakdown and interest in/obsession with with a Jewish funeral ritual were not very well-explained, at least not to my satisfaction. The ritual, by the way, was interesting from a cultural and educational point of view, but as a part of the film it was my least favorite. I disliked Julie Ariola's pious character every time she was on the screen, for some reason. And I found myself again wondering why Arquette has such a hard time finding roles that are worthy of her.

Apparently many people found this film edifying, but I would proceed with caution. One thing proponents and detractors alike could probably agree on: if you're looking for a tear-jerker, go elsewhere. There probably wasn't a wet eye in the house when this film was playing.