User reviews

Things you can tell just by looking at her

In Things you can tell just by looking at her we meet several women who for different reasons seem to be playing bit parts in their own lives. One of them takes care of her mother in a big lonely house, Rebecca stops listening to her own feelings because a baby does not fit into the life of her married lover, Rose discovers that her son is growing up, Calista's girlfriend is dying and ? takes care of her blind sister.

After watching the film I thought: what does this film want to tell us about women? Or perhaps people in general. Some of the lines in the film stuck in my mind: The blind girl says about the woman who committed suicide: `I bet you could tell just by looking at her that there was a man involved.' When giving this line some thought I starting seeing the film as a comment on `loneliness' in general. What do people really want? They want to be involved with people. They want other people to see them.

The film suggests that when people don't depend on anyone anymore when they have no one `to be' for - they chose to actually become nothing to die. The loneliness at the heart of existence is too hard to bear. I think the film is about the nature of making connections and being involved with other people although it is painful and sometimes lead to self-sacrifice. It shows us the horror which is tied with the fear of being left alone, although the connections which are made does little to remove the feeling of loneliness. It is the horror of a stranger walking into your personal sphere and immediately being able to see through you and see what lies beneath the surface. It is the horror of revealing your interest in other people - looking in on other peoples lives, in a desperate attempt to connect and to become involved. It is the horror of becoming involved with someone who cannot stay, the horror of losing those whom you connect with. When you are involved, and when you connect with someone, you face the danger of being hurt, being dumped - of sacrificing your own life in your care for others. It is the horror also that your sacrifice is not appreciated, the horror that when you are no longer a lover or a mother then you will certainly become nothing that your identity is so intricately tied with the dependence of those who need you that you cannot be `you' if they don't need you anymore. It is ultimately the horror of being defined by relations of interdependence where the people you care for in effect give you identity. It is the horror that you really are nothing without other people to mirror yourself in.

Why is this form of `self-sacrifice' then particular to women? We learn from Walter's daughter that when he really gets involved `He dumps them like a hot potato'. Are women victims and easy to exploit? Rose's teenage son confides that people `are always' looking for someone. But is the act of making these connections and becoming involved truly more important to women - truly more essential in their attempt at becoming someone - of gaining an identity. Are women always characterized by either being cared for or being the ones who take care of others? Interestingly, none of these women are wives - they are defined by other types of relationships than those that arise between man and wife.

I do not think I can answer these questions and I don't think the film wants to answer them either. But I think the film is a point of departure for discussing the nature of being - and the way we all perhaps depend upon others in order to become.

7/10

Some questions remain without a plausible answer: why did THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER go direct to cable TV in the US? I don't know and I'm still angry about that, since it has a great cast and was very well received in Cannes. Fortunately, it was received a limited release here in Brazil, where it was a kind of art-house hit during the time of the year when only blockbusters have their place in the sun. The secret of its success here is not hard to understand: audiences who were tired of Hollywood crap found a small, quiet dramatic comedy with a good story, some heart-breaking moments (and some very funny ones, too) and terrific performances. This is the kind of film that touches everyone, even the coldest and most serious person, making them laugh and feel deep emotions. Despite its division in five stories, all of them excellent (except the part with the lesbian, which was too small), this film is carefully paced, helping us to understand each character's emotions. And each story has an interesting link to the other.

If I had to choose my favorite part, I would have to think. The Dr. Keener story is sad and quiet, the one with Rebecca is the most thought-provoking, while the dwarf story is touching and funny, and the sister-sister story brilliantly closes the film.

If you haven't seen this yet, watch it now. There are not many good films with "women" as the main subject, but this one is one of the best I've seen. It has an eye for detail, it makes us think with its reflection about what women are nowadays (I loved Cameron Diaz guessing about what made her sister's friend committing suicide). And there are great actresses which seem to fit the role perfectly: Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Amy Brennemann, Kathy Baker, Holly Hunter, Calista Flockhart and Valeria Golino. I hope Rodrigo Garcia, son of famed writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, makes other great films like this.

This was okay, I can't fault any of the performances and the 5 (loosely) interconnected stories are well written, imaginative (in a creative writing type way) and interesting however it still failed to grab me on any level or leave a lasting impression.

The vignettes all deal with dramatic developments in the lives of a diverse group of women, most of whom are lonely and or unhappy. All the performances are fantastic and at times raw opening with Glenn Close as a doctor looking after her invalid mother, Holly Hunter as a bank manager dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and an observant street woman, Kathy Baker as a single mother debating a romance with a new neighbour, Calista Flockhart is a tarot reader whose girlfriend is dying of cancer and police detective Amy Brenneman examines her loneliness when her blind sister Cameron Diaz begins dating.

There are some beautifully shot scenes here especially the outdoor ones although I was distracted by the random black cloudiness that appeared at the top of the screen from time to time. Like most people I thought there was something wrong with my copy of the movie. Not sure what that was supposed to signify.

I also think this could have benefited from more of an arc tying all the stories together (like the suicide woman) as it was I failed to see any connection. 5/31/15

The only other movie I've ever been moved to write a comment for was Mission to Mars. Unlike MtM, which I was moved to review due to it being one of the very worst movies I've ever seen, this one is truly touching. Things You Can Tell... is a testimony that an American movie, with well-known American actors, can be delicate, beautifully acted, and most of all, not chewed and explained to death. It does not regard its viewers as braindead; neither does it regard them as artsy. It is a movie for everyone, about people just like us.

This is not an art-house movie - the story plot is a collection of stories about the everyday lives of everyday women (the reviewer who said she never seen such repulsive characters might be in for a shock if she actually talks to her daughter / mother / sister).

It shows women beautifully, and absolutely believably. It also shows nicely that diversity is not a question of the skin color, but of the attitude (hence the stories feature only white women).

It's also not a chick flick - while certainly it will be loved by women, it also works for cynical, hard to move guys like me.

Watch it, it's really good, in a not-in-your-face, subtle way.

This film consists of several different stories that are very loosely connected to each other. I was drawn into each individual story but would have liked to have known more about them. What would have made this film really good in my opinion is if there had been a single strong story line woven through all the stories; an interconnection that would have kept the coincidence intact, but would have made it an unseparable whole. That is what I missed. I am very happy though that at the end there was a kind of closing to each of the stories, but that really deserved more time. So a good film, with interesting characters and good portrayals, but it lacked the depth and interconnection that it made me both expect and hope to find.

Since today is Glenn Close's 60th birthday, I wanted to talk about one of her lesser known movies. Directed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's son Rodrigo, "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" interweaves the stories of several women. Close plays a doctor having to care for her mother. Kathy Baker, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Valeria Golino, Holly Hunter and Elpidia Carrillo play some of the other women.

At times, the movie gets confusing, what with the various plots crossing paths, but I still found it worthy. Some people might compare "TYCTJBLAH" to "Short Cuts" and "The Hours", but I beg to differ. This one never gets cynical like "Short Cuts" (although the latter was still worth seeing) and isn't a downer like "The Hours" (although the latter was still worth seeing). Despite having a bunch of stars, this movie never feels like the sort of movie that collects a bunch of stars to show them off; the looks at the women's relationships ensure that the film has a more realistic feeling.

Anyway, I recommend it, but don't expect a religious experience.

Though more cerebral than most chick flicks, "Things..." is all about women and women's issues. A plaintive and sometimes quirky look into a handful of female lives, this film is shot as several vignettes connected by one or two cross-over characters. Lacking in substance and story, "Things..." relies heavily on a cadre of fine actors, a script which is a tad surreal, and the voyeuristic inclinations of the audience. A good watch for female couch potatoes.

This was a touching film that dealt with a few womens lives. I thought the acting in the film was great. The film kept me interested most of the time. I wanted to see how everything turned out for all of them. I would watch this again sometime. I'm pretty sure I missed a few things.

The greatest virtue of this movie resides in the close look the camera focuses on stories and characters. Slowly but relentlessly, humorous and cruel at the same time, it allows the time needed for seven wonderful actresses to reveal their most intimate and contradictory feelings, without relying exclusively on the dialogue. Thus, the stories really turn to be things you can tell about these women by just looking (attentively) at them.

And isn't watching carefully what a movie is about?

The result of this very "objective" look is the healthy absence of a moral, a trap writers tend to fall into when dealing with lesbian love, mortal diseases, abortion, loneliness, egotism, discrimination, etc.

It's been labeled by some as a "feminist" film, another often mistaken category into which films with women protagonists fall into. I believe it's far from being such. It should appeal to both sensitive and sensible men and women.

Starring Cameron Diaz, Callista (Ally McBeal) Flockhart, Holly Hunter and Glen Close, this is a film reminiscent in some ways of Short Cuts and Magnolia. There are four overlapping stories, none of them particularly amazing, but all brilliantly acted and with such apparent spontaneity that they seem almost documentary-like in conviction they carry. Several controversial issues are capably tackled and the film (unlike Short Cuts or Magnolia) never really sags. The star line up suggests a blockbuster rather than an art-house movie, but Things You Can Tell is more for the connoisseur than someone seeking mainstream entertainment.

A look at the lives of several different women in five separate stories. Writer-director Rodrigo García isn't indifferent to the characters he's depicting--one can sense that he wants to dig to the very core of a woman's emotional being with these portraits--but his chapters are handled oddly, in clinical fashion. Garcia also fails show off his star-actresses to their full advantages, particularly in the cases of Calista Flockhart and Holly Hunter--both weakly used. Of the group, Cameron Diaz is the most surprising, delivering a focused, balanced portrayal of a blind woman (her crying scene, shot in close-up, is quite stunning); however, these ladies aren't the living, breathing, suffering people they're meant to be. This unreleased theatrical feature, facile though it may be, was certainly a step forward in showcasing great femme talent, but the end result is a mixed-bag. ** from ****

Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia's feature film debut "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" might have a jarring, if too long, title, but the son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez presents a passionate work of cinematic fiction. The film presents several short stories; snapshots of women at a crossroads. One story is of a doctor who has lost sight of spiritual meaning in her life, and has elicited the assistance of a tarot card reader to help her find her way. This card reader may assist people with getting through the future with clarity, but she has one foot in the past as she watches her girlfriend succumb to a debilitating disease.

Each story intersects and overlaps the others in unique and interesting ways. The all-star cast of female talent bring to their deliberately under drawn characters some of their strongest performances, especially Calista Flockhart (at the time, fresh from "Ally McBeal") who provides her psychic character with fairy-like innocence, Kathy Baker who brings good-natured humorous curiosity to a role that could have quickly become a sociopath stalker, and Holly Hunter in an understated performance as a bank owner who contemplates the ramifications of motherhood on her life.

Why do they make movies that leave you hanging or end them so badly because they have no clue as to how to go about it? Just disappointing considering a lot of big names and my personal fav: Holly Hunter

"Hanging in thin air" says it about as well as I can.

There weren't enough points of connection between the stories to keep that part of it interesting. Each story trailed off to an ambiguous and inconclusive segue in to the next. Some of these were tied together later, though.

I've heard the same things said about the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

However, the cast did a fine job with a dubious script.

My favorites: Glenn Close, Kathy Baker, Holly Hunter, Amy Brenneman, Danny Woodburn. Oh well, Cameron Diaz, too.

Matt Craven was wonderfully smarmy, although it wasn't quite believable that any woman, even a blind one, couldn't spot that at 100 paces away.

p.s. Paul is right, it's not strictly a chick flick. It speaks to men as well, to the extent that it finds its voice.

This is a series of short stories, each with one or two women as the central characters. The film relies on subtlety to make its point, the only problem being that the point is not terribly original. However, the cast is truly an impressive one, with confident and heartfelt performances all around. The movie is not romance, not comedy, not tragedy, but a whisper-like mixture of the three. The stories are related by, again this word, subtle coincidences of plot and less-than-subtle coincidences of theme, the theme of caretaking (of a dying or handicapped loved one) being the most common. In short, the film is warm, gentle, and enjoyable, but unfortunately has nothing new to say, and is ultimately forgettable.

I know that's a strange title to use for my review, but that's how I felt about the film. It was flawed in many ways, but interesting enough that I might want to scan it again. Maybe not watch it in its entirely, but scan parts of it.

One of the major flaws, for me, was the dialogue. All the characters spoke in the same way. If you closed your eyes, you would not be able to distinguish one female character from another., because there was no individuality in any of their manners of speech. Even the homeless woman and the young blind teen girl didn't really talk differently from the other female characters. That gave the characters less personality, which detracted from the overall feel of the film.

I felt the same way about the acting. I saw no real difference between any of the female characters. They were all the same, just in different circumstances. Again, I felt that made the movie less interesting.

I'm glad another reviewer mentioned the odd lighting in some of the scenes. In many scenes, both indoors and outdoors, the top part of the frame was darkened. Then the next scene would revert to normal lighting. I tried to find some reason for this, some message the director was trying to convey with that technique, but I found none. Maybe I missed whatever the reason for that was. But that lighting technique took my out of the movie, distracted me, as I was trying to figure out why it was that way.

The other reviewer said he saw the movie on a German DVD. Mine was the American release, and it was the same way. So I guess that was intentional on the part of the filmmakers, though I don't know why. I actually thought I may have gotten a defective disk, but reading that other review, it seems that lighting was purposeful.

And yes, I'm reviewing this movie 20 years after it was released! But I found a DVD of it, and decided to give it a try. It was one of those early annoying flipper disks, with a full-screen version of the film on one side, and a widescreen version on the other. Thankfully those disks are long gone, no long produced that way.

I will give a shout out to Cameron Diaz here. She actually showed some acting chops in this film. I'm more used to seeing her in the "Charlie's Angels" movies and "There's Something About Mary", where she is a stereotype, not really in parts that required any acting skills. But she was very good in this.

This movie is hard to find now, but if anyone gets a chance to watch it, they should. In spite of the flaws I mentioned, it is, as I said, oddly interesting.

I know that when some people go to the movies they wish to be transported to some place where reality is suspended and everything is a fantasy world or a thrill ride. However, this film is a rare gem because it captivates your attention without any special effects or strange situations. The people in this movie for better or worse are real. If you want to see a movie about real people with real connections/relationships then this is the movie for you.

Each of the women in the movie seem to be seeking for some sort of human contact. Each woman has her foibles that lead to her loneliness or failure. By briefly looking into each woman's life we see what is causing her heartache...thus, we see the things we can tell just by looking at her, or rather, things we can see by looking into her life.

While it has been several years since I saw this movie it has always stood out in my mind. I generally enjoy Holly Hunter and Glen Close and there performances were proficient but I did not find them to be as captivating as the Christine-Lily combo and Cameron Diaz. Calista Flockheart and her counterpart present a touching couple and perhaps the most honest and heartfelt relationship in the film. Both actresses are believable and engaging. As far as Cameron Diaz goes, she totally owns this movie as the best performance. I have lived with someone who is legally blind and Cameron Diaz truly exhibited what it is like to be blind. Additionally, none of her lines were delivered in a flat way and she captured my attention for every moment she was on screen. Normally, I do not like Ms. Diaz's work but this changed my mind and I hope that one day she will have another chance to prove her acting chops like she did in this film.

It was the movie I chose, to celebrate Mother's Day this year. I remember not enjoying it a lot, the first time I saw it. But maybe I was too young to appreciate it back then. Now I see it for what it is. A very good ensemble cast movie, with wonderful actresses and subtle writing. I still think it sort of loses steam, around the third story, and Christine's segment is my least favorite part of the movie. Which is unexpected, because I'm a big fan of Ally McBeal, and esotericism. But the acting is still very accurate, there. Concerning the movie in general, I love how the pieces are put together, without forcing it. Or the way very different characters are portrayed, without being too antagonistic towards each other. Or don't define themselves through their peculiarities. It was about life and people being people, all the while having something special to tell. And it's a thing that's missing a lot in movies these days.

...with the other user. On the contrary, I find Things You Can Tell... to be a very intense drama. Even I, being male, could easily identify with all the characters. The title says it all, you know what these characters feel and think just by looking at them, and it's done in a very subtle and under-acted way. I must agree, though, that I, too, was surprised by Cameron Díaz; I knew all the other actresses to be first rate, but up until this movie, I'd always thought of Díaz as a dumb blonde; I'm glad she proved me wrong. I know a lot of Americans (and I'm NOT saying ALL) want big emotions, larger-than-life drama, and a lot of FX...but life isn't that way, life is like this movie: funny, touching, sad, lonely, full of love and, yes, even repressed. 10/10

There is a lot good about this movie. The acting is exceptional by all, especially the leading women. The direction is well done. I thought the pace of the film was good. For a character-driven movie, the pace was right on, but perhaps a little slow for the MTV generation.

The plot was OK, but the characters didn't have much of an arc. We got to see a slice of their lives, but we didn't see a lot of evolution in the characters. I had expected some sort of climax where we got to see an intersection in these people's lives that was more profound than the superficial interactions that we got to see.

While I found it to be an OK movie, I was a little disappointed and unfulfilled. There was a potential here for a substantially better film.

While the film tells some more or less interesting stories about some more or less interesting people, it fails to capture its audience. Despite the cast of excellent actresses and the good performances, the viewer remains at a distance and you cannot help feeling like the scientist who views a bunch of ants under the looking glass...

In addition, the Director, who also wrote the script, does not develop an interesting visual style for the film - it seems as if the dialog and the performances were enough in the Director's view to make a good movie - well, they are not. I have seen this as a German DVD edition and I'm not sure whether the transfer was very bad or whether the film was intended to look the way it did - quite often the top part of the frame is darker than the rest, usually in a way so that the actors' faces are lit normally, while the background fades away horizontally (not vertically, though). Quite irritating, in my view.

Overall, stays well behind its potential. (3/10)

This film is very slow but never boring and that's a remarkable feat. The acting is superb and the stories are emotional but never too sentimental. Just some more or less tragic women's stories in modern-day life.

Of course, there are many politically correct moves, like the lesbian couple, the black husband, the blind girl, the dwarf and the beggarwoman, but this is not really annoying. The only thing that I found a bit out of reality were the overly smart kids (i.e. Rose's son and the blind daughter).

All in all, good work on women's issues by male director.

Very personal pieces that intersect each other very well. Around here I read that it was amazing that the director was a man and I think the same as a man. Rodrigo García captures the essences of different women without much stereotype and puts them in a human role, showing them both weak and strong, overcoming or not those adversities.

The script is correct, slow but it is justified during. The cast is very neat with actresses of different profiles but who in a surprising way fit together perfectly. Glenn with a particular presence as always, Holly Hunter giving powerful scenes such as her crying in the street, Kathy Baker simple but present, a sentimental Calista Flockhart and the one I liked the most and surprised was Cameron Diaz, literally this role does her justice to her talent. In the few minutes that she appeared, she literally gave a poetic meaning to the stories of all and at the same time lowered them to the plane of reality giving a certain order, splendid.

It is a story that one expects a typical drama but ends up being something more intimate and deep. Undoubtedly the films that are to be seen again after a certain time and discover more its charm.

Last month (Sep, 2001) the Atlantic Monthly ran an article addressing the new trend of slow and hyper-stylized novels masquerading as self-proclaimed "literary novels." If the article had instead focused on plotless movies that aspire to be "films" this would have been a prime example. The only thing that kept me from voting this a 1 was the uniformly excellent cast and a the wonderful character of a zesty blind woman (played by Cameron Diaz) and a charming dwarf (an actor I'm not familiar with).

The problem with this self-consciously styled "women's art movie" is that it is neither particularly artistic nor particularly insightful about women (although there have been many insightful films done about women by male directors, this is not one of them). The film flirts with a trendy collage format that flickers between different points in time and threads them together by the forced conceit of a suicidal brunette who acts as a time marker. The compelling idea of interlaced stories is here made merely distracting--there are at least 5 main characters (I'm probably missing somebody), its just too hard to keep track of their relationships let alone figure out how their stories are interrelated.

The connections are hardly meaningful anyways-- example-- Cameron Diaz is the blind pianist alluded to in a brief anecdote of Calista Flockheart's to her dying lover in one story of the movie. Cameron Diaz is also tutoring the daughter of the man who was a one night stand for Holly Hunter in yet another story.

The movies main offense is in trying so hard to be "smart" that it is forgets to be entertaining. The editing is AWFUL. Apparently whoever was doing the final cut was taught that focusing on a character spacing out for minutes at a time would prod viewers to imagine what the characters were really thinking. I found myself wondering what the DIRECTOR was thinking. This is truly the stuff bad literature is made of. Skip it. If you enjoy the idea of overlapping stories I suggest the Blue, White and Red series (Blue with Juliette Binoche is especially fine and Red is thought provoking). For a B-grade shmaltzy movie that is still infinately more enjoyable than "things you can tell by looking at her" try Playing By Heart. At least the Angelina Jolie vignette is consistently interesting. For a more sincere "womens movie" try steel magnolias, "fried green tomatos," or "Angelina's Line."