Five Nights in Maine

Heartfelt, intense. Terrific acting by the entire cast.

It's about pain, loss, pain of loss, unimaginable and infinite, a beautiful movie, 5 days in Maine, in the presence of the ex mother-in-law, good dialogues, a lot of pain and longing represented, hurts, sensitive, sore, beautiful, the pain of mother and husband...

The director's use of merciless close-ups and hand-held camera actually very soon began to hurt my eyes, turning me off about whatever was happening on screen. We are given about thirty seconds to get to know the soon deceased wife, and so we have little connection with her. The husband is a blank pager as well: other than the fact that he is black (the deceased was white) we know nothing about him. Now I could have been patient and allowed the movie to tell me more about these people, but not through those shaky close-ups. Off it went!

The reviews on it were right. The film is all about David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest bouncing things off each other, and it's got that going for it, that two such great actors can hold down a film all by themselves, but you do have to like Oyelowo and Wiest a lot to really like the movie.

It's one of those movies that does not really have a point or expresses it in such low key that only someone watching who has been in that position could really reflect on what is going on and fully feel the emotion.

It's not that pin point of a situation. A man loses his wife in a car accident and the only one who can relate is his Mother-In-Law, but she is a pain in the neck even after her child's death (although she's dying from cancer so give her a break). This is a harsh situation while they're grieving

Also thought Rosie Perez was great too in the small role she had. Wish it had more of her because I like seeing her on the screen a lot.

It was good that the director and writer did have three really good actors to implement their material. They were the redeemable factor in the mediocre film.

Sherwin (David Oyelowo) is suffering after the death of his beloved wife. He goes to spend some time with his estranged terminally ill mother-in-law Lucinda (Dianne Wiest). Both are suffering and both are distant from each other.

This has two exceptional movie stars doing emotional material. This should be good, but it feels like it doesn't want to dive into the material. It works around it. I just want the movie to force the issue. It needs to raise the intensity. While it may be realistic, It is not dramatic. This has enough for a short. At a shorten 82 minutes, it still feels way too long.