Oh boo-hoo. Vivi's boyfriend was killed in the war so she married some poor sap that she could push around, crawled into a bottle (booze, then pills, then back to booze when the pills didn't work out) all the while blaming her children and The Sap for her unfilled life. Then she had the nerve to be upset when her emotionally scarred daughter told the world that she remembered Mama and that it wasn't fondly. Mama's ticked so her little band of acolytes/enablers (all alcoholics to a woman), kidnaps Sidda to prove to her that Mama's not so bad. Yeah, maybe if you're viewing her through the bottom of a glass she's not. The worst part of this movie is that Mama gets away with it! She wraps her daughter in Southern charm and eccentricity and all is forgiven. Fade to black.
This is the first movie I ever wanted to walk out of, and almost did during the scene where she was beating her children bloody with a leather belt. The movie hints that Vivi's mother made her life a living hell when she was a child. Too bad she didn't remember any of those feelings before she started inflicting similar pain on her own children. But then again, it's obvious that Vivi's are the only feelings that matter to Vivi. Did anyone else notice that none of her three children lived anywhere near her in her golden years?
The cast is loaded with great actresses, all who have been fine in other work, and James Garner makes a nice doormat. I confess I didn't read the book(s) nor do I want to after this. The director does try to take some of the edge off by inserting little manipulative bits of warmth and caring into the movie at various points so that the audience won't think Vivi's a total monster, but it's way too little too late. The movie ends up being too bitter a pill for the intelligent viewer to swallow.
And a note to Maggie Smith, recently so good in Gosford Park: add American Southerner to your "never-again" list. Vivien Leigh could handle the accent, you can't. What were you thinking? And along those lines, what was the studio advertising department thinking when they promoted this as a comedy???
This is the first movie I ever wanted to walk out of, and almost did during the scene where she was beating her children bloody with a leather belt. The movie hints that Vivi's mother made her life a living hell when she was a child. Too bad she didn't remember any of those feelings before she started inflicting similar pain on her own children. But then again, it's obvious that Vivi's are the only feelings that matter to Vivi. Did anyone else notice that none of her three children lived anywhere near her in her golden years?
The cast is loaded with great actresses, all who have been fine in other work, and James Garner makes a nice doormat. I confess I didn't read the book(s) nor do I want to after this. The director does try to take some of the edge off by inserting little manipulative bits of warmth and caring into the movie at various points so that the audience won't think Vivi's a total monster, but it's way too little too late. The movie ends up being too bitter a pill for the intelligent viewer to swallow.
And a note to Maggie Smith, recently so good in Gosford Park: add American Southerner to your "never-again" list. Vivien Leigh could handle the accent, you can't. What were you thinking? And along those lines, what was the studio advertising department thinking when they promoted this as a comedy???