Second Best

This is a moving, touching film. For me a little bit frightening too. In the real world there are some people, who behave like Holt. (Unimportant, but funny that the word "Holt" means Dead in Hungarian which is my first language.) This movie is like a therapy, an advice for unhappy, lonely people. A believable film is a great pleasure nowadays, but if you meet your own life face-to-face in a script, well... it's pretty scary. If you pay attention good enough, it changes your life! Thank God for this film!

This is an exquisitely poignant tale of a love-starved, troubled orphan boy and an emotionally incomplete man who has decided to reach out for what he wants most in life: a son. Jamie very much wants to love the kind man who wants to adopt him but is prevented from doing so by the promise he made to his biological father just before dad went to jail: to love him "best in the whole world forever." In what may just be the greatest dramatic performance by a child ever captured on film (surpassing even that of Freddie Bartholomew in "Captains Courageous" who had held that title for that past 60 years), Chris Cleary Miles demonstrates a precocity which makes one wonder if he hasn't already overcome some great tribulation(s?) in his short life in order to give such a compelling performance. Alternately masochistic, loving, violent and affectionate, the range and depth of emotion he portrays are nonpareil. I am still having trouble believing it was only a movie! It is unfortunate that Miles never acted in another movie; on the other hand, when you start at the top you can only go down.

Others have called this William Hurt's greatest role and I would have to agree. While his transformation from the stiff, detached loner to loving father was beautifully written in the book by David Cook, Hurt interprets this flawlessly. In fact you might say the film's brilliance was relatively easy on the heels of Cook's depictions. Nevertheless every scene in the movie is significant and the editing with the multiple flashbacks was excellent. Why this film did not win all kinds of awards is beyond me.

"Second Best" is second best to none in its genre.

If you have a sense of love within you, this movie is for you. There are few things as sad as loneliness. And few things as heart wrenching as seeing it overcome.

This film provides both. though it was not a huge success in the theater, (this film was gravely underrated), it is a wonderful story. A bond of trust and love between child and adult, forged in the pain and fear of emptiness. If you missed it in the theater, take the time to find it, and watch it at home.

I can only hope that a long awaited DVD release is near at hand. there are too many movies with 'created' story lines. This one is as real as it comes. If only there were more like it......

An Update... Here in 2012, this has still not been released on DVD. What a shame. I watched it on Laser Disc yesterday, and it is such a wonderful film. Someone missed the boat on the DVD release. Sad...

I rarely write reviews for movies. And having seen the other excellent reviews, mine is hardly needed. But I stumbled across this movie and felt I had to comment on it.

This is an excellent movie with wonderful acting, directing, writing, screen play, and filming. I saw the last 2/3 of the movie by accident and could not tear myself away from it.

William Hurt and the boy actor (sorry - forgot the name) are thrown together by life's accidents and develop bonds for one another. The rough edges on each character are worn smooth as each accommodates the other and learns of the other's trials and humanity. The acting is superb and rarely gets in the way of the content - more to the point, the acting complements the story well.

But what makes the movie special is the character development. The writing, directing, and screen play successfully convey the existential experiences of the actors as they develop and react to one another.

A good song, a good poem, a good book - are made special if they are accessible - if they evoke within you the ring of truth and personal history. This movie communicated with me extremely well on a personal basis, on many plans at the same time. Every element of this film was well crafted. The movie is cerebral and touching - with very few rough edges. I couldn't recommend it more highly for an adult audience.

I've read the other reviews posted here and concur with all of them. The film triumphs in its realistic depiction of two broken hearts, Jamie's and Graham's. I think, in order to appreciate the story, one must have somehow experienced the psychic shock of childhood abandonment, either emotionally or by outright physical abandonment. The pleasure of watching this film, aside from the acting and cinematography, is having the sense that it will work out okay. At the very end, when Jamie walks briskly to catch up with Graham, slips his hand into the grownup's hand, and then walks much more slowly, one can see in their stride together the fulfillment each has received. I rewound the film at that point to see that scene again.