Oscar Stats: Best picture, Best Actor: George Clooney, Best Director: Payne, Best adapted Screenplay
Verdict: A good film, not a must see, but decent. Does not deserve best picture
I love the fact that this movie is almost entirely driven by a character who is dying, immobile in a hospital bed during the entire movie. It’s a very interesting look at grief and how it affects families and the intimacy of families. However, you get over this “uniqueness” really quickly. I kinda felt myself saying “That’s it?” at the end. You know what’s going to happen the whole time and nothing terribly surprising occurs.
The simple fact of the matter is that the entire movie is centered around the fact that George Clooney’s character cannot get a fucking break, and I really don’t think he’s going to get an Oscar. He’s by far the best element of the movie. He’s very sincere, insanely believable, and he manages to pull off the very rare combo of sad/witty. But, let’s face it, it’s what he does in every movie. I was flashing back to Up Up and Away the whole time (though I did like that one better). I just felt like I was watching another, faintly interesting George Clooney movie. I’m not gonna lie though, they shoulda chucked Teen Pregnancy a supporting actress nod. She did phenomenally.
The last thing is I would be comfortable with it taking everything but screenplay. The writing was very nice at some points, especially in the intial narration. But the narrating voice leaves and it’s a little jarring. Also, there are some painfully hard moments to get through. This movie succeeds because it’s very raw, and claims to be a rather realistic look at grief (though I’m not really quite sure why everyone’s of rather normal attractiveness except George Clooney). However, it fails at being believable because there are moments that just seem scripted and fake: especially Clooney’s last words to his wife.
I feel harsh, but I did enjoy it and didn’t think it was a waste of time to watch at all, but it’s just not up to the caliber of Oscar. Gonna have to watch Sideways.
