This film absolutely spoils the viewer for the first hour and fifty minutes. It really does screw up when it turns from a greatly constructed thriller from the mind behind the most terrifying novels that have sold million. Turns into a badly leaded, and cheaply constructed court room movie.
A girl has to go to her hometown. In small pieces of sea-bedded land, in a small community. Where her hardworking mother has been arrested for killing someone. But when she returns, she opens a door to old memories, about nasty little things she had forgotten that had really happened. She hated and judicated her mother for it.
Its a dramatic movie, that moves, loses and scares the viewer in ways the contemporary audience would'nt have expected from a King inspired story. Its ending is its only flaw. It dribbles on too long when the film should finished, but it had to tell what happens to the protagonists. Before that, it feels like a film directed by Sam Raimi with close ups and inventive shots of painted scenes and dark subject matter scenes have the contrast liquefied. And the film is always jumping into the past with injecting the colorful years back into the shot as it tells its story non-linearly in flashbacks.
Its story is its attraction. So I will not spoil it in this review. But give you idea of what you're going into; get ready to be uncomfortable, both for an old film that has a slow start; and pathetic characters who wont be easy to like. Now to contradict that, this must the best casted film I've seen in awhile. Kathy Bates as Dolores Claiborne; she showed how good she is as a frighting number 1 fan in Stephen King's Misery and she is just as phenomenally entertaining in this film. Jennifer Jason Leigh is probably the worst casted member, she falls through most scene and makes it when its counts.
But to be honest she playing a pretty messed up and broken, conflicted young woman in world where she has no control over what she wants or has any idea how bad thing really are. Christopher Plummer is easily the best performance and Judt Parfitt. But more memorable is the supporting role by John C Reiley; he's easy to dislike but makes the final scene a bit more bearable when his character finally makes sense.
It has a cut-off small town in New England with each actor giving away that, with a borderline accent. It has two main plots, one about the past and redemption and revelation and the present that is like I said always coated in a dead dark and dramatic aesthetics that makes the well tolled tale more moving. A long time housekeeper is the main suspect to a murderer, but of course its not all that easy; its find by Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that in fact they loved each other and even help each other in terrible moments in the past. Then the second plot is about Selena herself taking control of her life by reciting her abusive alcoholic father and accepting her mother has always been there for her.
A very sweet film when you don't think about some moments that are really dark, but King and the director Taylor Hackford; mash up their story telling talent with some really great filmmaking. with scenes like this; when the character is effortlessly looking into the past without prompt to whether the audience is ready. Or this scene when the mirror resembles how ruined their lives are. And this just amazing looking transcendence scene from the second act to the final act with a polarizing moon eclipse.
But again; the only thing that would stop me from watching this stylish mystery drama is the ending. It could have ended somewhere before the final moments, before Jason Leigh gave the whole second degree in an unshabby courtroom scene and makes the other actors seem like they're saying your ruining this film. But I digress, a nice film is a nice film. And Dolores Claiborne is a Stephen King film made by Sam Raimi -- that's what the film felt like for me. But more seriously its a drama film for dramatic narrative. And looks way too nice not work on some less hardhearted viewers.
A girl has to go to her hometown. In small pieces of sea-bedded land, in a small community. Where her hardworking mother has been arrested for killing someone. But when she returns, she opens a door to old memories, about nasty little things she had forgotten that had really happened. She hated and judicated her mother for it.
Its a dramatic movie, that moves, loses and scares the viewer in ways the contemporary audience would'nt have expected from a King inspired story. Its ending is its only flaw. It dribbles on too long when the film should finished, but it had to tell what happens to the protagonists. Before that, it feels like a film directed by Sam Raimi with close ups and inventive shots of painted scenes and dark subject matter scenes have the contrast liquefied. And the film is always jumping into the past with injecting the colorful years back into the shot as it tells its story non-linearly in flashbacks.
Its story is its attraction. So I will not spoil it in this review. But give you idea of what you're going into; get ready to be uncomfortable, both for an old film that has a slow start; and pathetic characters who wont be easy to like. Now to contradict that, this must the best casted film I've seen in awhile. Kathy Bates as Dolores Claiborne; she showed how good she is as a frighting number 1 fan in Stephen King's Misery and she is just as phenomenally entertaining in this film. Jennifer Jason Leigh is probably the worst casted member, she falls through most scene and makes it when its counts.
But to be honest she playing a pretty messed up and broken, conflicted young woman in world where she has no control over what she wants or has any idea how bad thing really are. Christopher Plummer is easily the best performance and Judt Parfitt. But more memorable is the supporting role by John C Reiley; he's easy to dislike but makes the final scene a bit more bearable when his character finally makes sense.
It has a cut-off small town in New England with each actor giving away that, with a borderline accent. It has two main plots, one about the past and redemption and revelation and the present that is like I said always coated in a dead dark and dramatic aesthetics that makes the well tolled tale more moving. A long time housekeeper is the main suspect to a murderer, but of course its not all that easy; its find by Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that in fact they loved each other and even help each other in terrible moments in the past. Then the second plot is about Selena herself taking control of her life by reciting her abusive alcoholic father and accepting her mother has always been there for her.
A very sweet film when you don't think about some moments that are really dark, but King and the director Taylor Hackford; mash up their story telling talent with some really great filmmaking. with scenes like this; when the character is effortlessly looking into the past without prompt to whether the audience is ready. Or this scene when the mirror resembles how ruined their lives are. And this just amazing looking transcendence scene from the second act to the final act with a polarizing moon eclipse.
But again; the only thing that would stop me from watching this stylish mystery drama is the ending. It could have ended somewhere before the final moments, before Jason Leigh gave the whole second degree in an unshabby courtroom scene and makes the other actors seem like they're saying your ruining this film. But I digress, a nice film is a nice film. And Dolores Claiborne is a Stephen King film made by Sam Raimi -- that's what the film felt like for me. But more seriously its a drama film for dramatic narrative. And looks way too nice not work on some less hardhearted viewers.