Unconditional Love (2003)
As previously stated, I've got a thing for Peter Sarsgaard and my TiVo knows it. Too bad he (or, more accurately, his story line) is the worst thing about this movie.
The totally out-there plot involves Grace, a middle-aged dowdy housewife (Kathy Bates), being left by her "I don't want to be married any more" bore of a husband, her favorite singer being murdered by "the crossbow killer," and her impulse flight to England to pay her respects. And, by that point, we're just getting started.
Rupert Everett is marvelous as Dirk, the deceased's longtime companion -- he's almost heartbreaking at times. I think this movie could've really been something if there was more focus on the new relationship between Dirk and Grace: a look at the way someone fully unexpected can come into your life and truly help when no one else can. It could have been a lovely, funny, and wacky romantic (platonic) comedy.
But they had to go and ruin it with the crossbow-killer and a crazy quest to track him down. Ugh. Of course the killer has a reason -- but it doesn't make a lick of sense and the draggy scene in which he holds our heroes as singing hostages gave me enough time to think "this really sucks," a thought which, 'til that point, I hadn't considered since I was kept so off-balance with nuttiness like Julie Andrews' fix-all "Getting to Know You" sing-alongs. I was having a good time until that sequence...and the eye-rolling denouement with Sally Jessy and Barry Manilow (no, I'm not making that up) just made things worse.
C
The totally out-there plot involves Grace, a middle-aged dowdy housewife (Kathy Bates), being left by her "I don't want to be married any more" bore of a husband, her favorite singer being murdered by "the crossbow killer," and her impulse flight to England to pay her respects. And, by that point, we're just getting started.
Rupert Everett is marvelous as Dirk, the deceased's longtime companion -- he's almost heartbreaking at times. I think this movie could've really been something if there was more focus on the new relationship between Dirk and Grace: a look at the way someone fully unexpected can come into your life and truly help when no one else can. It could have been a lovely, funny, and wacky romantic (platonic) comedy.
But they had to go and ruin it with the crossbow-killer and a crazy quest to track him down. Ugh. Of course the killer has a reason -- but it doesn't make a lick of sense and the draggy scene in which he holds our heroes as singing hostages gave me enough time to think "this really sucks," a thought which, 'til that point, I hadn't considered since I was kept so off-balance with nuttiness like Julie Andrews' fix-all "Getting to Know You" sing-alongs. I was having a good time until that sequence...and the eye-rolling denouement with Sally Jessy and Barry Manilow (no, I'm not making that up) just made things worse.
C
posted by MeMe | 1:58 PM
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