Jake raises his daughter Katie on his own after his wife died
in a fatal car accident and he suffered a mental breakdown. He struggles with
the daily routines he has to go through to make sure she lives happily. His
relatives intend to take Katie away from him but Jake knows that he has to hold
on to the one thing that he loves the most - his daughter.
After a mental breakdown, an award-winning writer (Russell
Crowe) copes with being a widower and a father while, 27 years later, his grown
daughter (Amanda Seyfried) struggles to forge connections of her own.
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and
father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter
struggles to forge connections of her own.
Jake Davis, a Pulitzer-winning novelist, finds himself
fighting against the world when a fatal car accident leaves him to raise his
5-year-old daughter, Katie, all on his own. Overcome with guilt from the loss
of his wife, he struggles with the daily routine of raising a child compounded
by his overbearing relatives’ intent on taking her away from him.
Reeling from his wife’s sudden death in a car crash, Jake is
sent away for treatment, and returns with only one solution to his crippling
financial woes. He churns out a book called Bitter Tulips, telling his agent that
it’s the best thing he’s ever written.
Russell Crowe played an energetic father like he was in his 30s, especially when he shows the affections to his daughter. The little girl who played the daughter role as well so fantastic. The disappointment was as usual Amanda Seyfried like any of her movies. I like her as a human being, no offense but not as an actress. Apart from her portions, it is not a bad movie.
ReplyDeleteThe girl and her father's story should have been the entire movie. With some catchy moments between them would have made it an awesome product. As expected the end was emotional, and another layer's end was terrible which Seyfried’s was obviously.
Narrated side by side with Katie’s childhood is her life 25 years on, which is continually inter-cut into the first story. Under the supervision of Octavia Spencer, she does social work with underprivileged kids like a little girl whose mother, a prostitute, was murdered in front of her eyes.
ReplyDeleteThe English dialogue is naturalistic, but one wishes the platitudes were fewer. “Life is a challenge and unfair and painful, but we can never give up” summarizes the do-good spirit of the film. Tech credits are high quality throughout, with a special nod owing to Alex Rodriguez’s clever editing job.
Persuasively inhabiting mental illness is a difficult wire to walk, acting-wise, and Crowe’s technique here is simply all over the shop – he’s meant to be playing a broken and tormented human being, but let’s just say this isn’t always the effect created.
ReplyDeleteKruger’s character reaches for alcohol in every scene she gets, sloshing it around in tumblers like a teenage drama student having a go at Edward Albee.
It shows good performances that will make you cry; but go ahead; it's healthy once in a while.
ReplyDeleteThe film might be a little corny for some, but it's a well-executed family drama.
This is also a high quality Hollywood production, designed for the thinking viewer.
The movie brought good old-fashioned Mediterranean emotion to a screenplay that feels oh so familiar; this modern-day weepie unapologetically plays to the crowd rather than the critics.
ReplyDeleteMuccino should have thinned this out, picked up the pace to give urgency to the novelist’s impending madness and literary quest, spent less money on peripheral characters so that he’d feel less guilt about trimming their scenes to quick sketches that make the plot work.
ReplyDeleteThe film has barely started than we've had a car crash, bereavement, references to infidelity and sequences of Russell Crowe writhing around like a man possessed.
No matter, as big, gloopy melodramas go; this is a perfectly good time-passer with lashings of actors and acting.
ReplyDeleteCrowe brings a soulful intensity to the dad who cherishes his daughter almost as much as he does his writing career. Seyfried's performance is heartfelt and brave in its way but the script doesn't help them. It is lines such as "Men can survive without love but not us women" that make this film such a stinker.