sage-42618

When you have a movie with Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Eugene Levy and Dennis Haysbert, you ought to get a movie worth watching. Keaton, sadly, has decided to spend the last of her career basically making the same movie over and over. Nothing changes. Bates looks terrible, showing the effects of her illnesses. At least she and Woodard try to inject something into their parts, but it doesn't work. The dialogue is insipid, which makes it worse. This type of movie can be fun. 80 for Brady with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno proves that. I was hoping to really enjoy this movie, but it was easy to do other things while it was on the TV. I'm glad I already pay for the streaming service I watched it on and didn't pay extra to go to a theater.

I bought the DVD for this years ago because I'm a Cate Blanchett fan and I found the movie thoroughly enjoyable. I couldn't understand why reviews are so bad until I saw it on TV for the first time. The movie is cut up so badly to fit ads in that some parts of it don't make sense. I just watched it again and it was terrible. Watch the longer Director's cut that leaves everything in. It's a shame what has been done to this movie, like so many others, so that someone with nothing invested in the movie can make a profit. The performances are quite good and it's an interesting telling of a legend.

This is one of those quiet British movies that turns out to be a good story. Gemma Arterton plays a reclusive author who everyone in her village hates. The children all believe she's a witch because of her behavior and she encourages them. It's early WW II and she finds her life turned upside down when a young evacuee suddenly shows up at her door and she's expected to take him in. As they develop a relationship, she tells him about her research into pagan lore and their belief in a place called "The Summerland," an afterlife that exists all around humans, who can sometimes see their lost loved ones there. Through flashbacks you learn that Arterton's distance from other people is caused by a failed relationship years before with another woman, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Dealing with the boy helps Arterton to heal until a crisis occurs that challenges them both, but in different ways.

Everything ties up very nicely at the end combining the themes of love, loss and forgiveness. It's the kind of movie the British seem to be very good at presenting.