Watch Olive Kitteridge For Free

Wonderful Movie

Redundant and unnecessary.

It is a performances centric movie

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Why is the media so negative? In a typical day, I hear about death from car crashes, house fires, plane crashes, robberies, mine explosions, terrorist bombings, cancer, ALS, MS, CVAs, MIs, suicides, industrial accidents,, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, drownings, lightning, drug overdose, alcoholism....you get the picture. Do I really need to spend 4 hours watching a mini-series about dusfunctional depressing people in some remote town with no socially redeeming value? This town is worse than Cabot Cove where there was a murder every week for its 12 year run; it's a miracle there was anyone left to die in that dreadful little village. With the media scouring the world to tell me repeatedly each day the worst, most depressing news they can find, do I really have any room left in my brain for a a story combining all the possible bad things that can happen to everyone in its cast? Warning!!!! If you have experienced any tragedy in your life, are on anti-depressants, or are concerned about the daily inhumanity of man to man coming to you on a multimedia barrage, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Strongly suggest a Hallmark production set in a beautiful location where two good looking people fall in love and drive an expensive flashy car.

Just because something is well written, nicely directed and terrifically acted doesn't mean that it will be enjoyed by viewers, at least not this viewer. OK, I understand the awards for individual achievements but as someone who just sat and watched the whole thing in one sitting, the only thing I'm walking away with is depression. Usually when you have a show of this type, there is some nod to something positive, maybe a small uplifting message but alas there was none. You don't even get a sense of self awareness. I don't think this was boring but just wish it would have come with a disclaimer "Warning - Viewing this show can be a real downer".

I've just read some of the negative reviews about Olive Ketteridge. I thought it was obvious what we were getting into in the first 30 minutes of this brilliant mini series. Yes it's a bit downbeat. But Olive Ketteridge is about real people and real situations, and let's face it it reflects certain areas of real life. I think we've all known characters like the ones portrayed in Olive Ketteridge. All the performances are spot on. Plus there are many areas of Olive Ketteridge that made this viewer smile. So I don't see the negativity. Maybe the negative reviews come from people who wanted to see a Deloris Claybourne or a True Detctive. Olive Ketteridge is about love, loss and what ifs, and that's about it.. But it's told so well that one almost forgets that the story's so simple.

Rather than an explicit film review, I'd like to lend some substantiation to the content of it. First, I knew little about the mini-series when I began watching but, I'll check out anything Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are in. After 30 minutes or so I almost changed the channel because it was all too familiar…I had already lived a similar story….so it was going to be a tough movie for me. But, I stuck it out because I guess some part of me felt that I needed to see it. I'm glad I did.One of the very important aspects of the movie is the WAY Olive is portrayed. What I mean is that most people (incl many Doctors) remain significantly unaware of the spectrum of depression behavior. People think it only has to do with sadness, withdrawal, hopelessness, etc. But, it affects some people in mostly other ways and, therefore, is often unrealized.I come from a family of depressed people but most of them don't know they are. We are like Olive in that we're working, functioning people but who also have very little patience, irritability, varying degrees of paranoia and anger, an overall negative outlook and quick physical fatigue. Doesn't sound like the typical descriptions of clinical depression, does it? However, read those symptoms a second time and notice that they all do have a common thread…..a feeling of futility.My siblings and I grew up in such a competitive, negative household with only a random crumb of encouragement and plenty of verbal undercutting from every direction. There was no Henry (the buffer) in my house. Now in my 50's I understand that mental illness was the driver behind most of it. But, you know what folks? It's amazing how people adapt to their own mean-spirited, glass-half-empty attitudes and feel like it's normal (because for them and their family members, it is!). Whereas Olive had some understanding that she was depressed, she either didn't REALLY get it or thought that by sheer force of will she could manage it. She had adapted to it; it was her norm. I think that happens to lots of people. But, it is a really sad path because, like her adult son, I too have been helped *enormously* by medication. It has made all the difference and I feel so lucky to be alive in an era that these medicines are available! The symptoms I mention above in paragraph 4 are primarily gone in me now. It has been an absolute life-changer. Olive and many others never seek the help and that is SO tragic. As is the fact that people pull away when you have those difficult behaviors, like her son did. Depressed people are hard to reason with and are cloudy in general, that is why they need help. A clinically depressed person cannot WILL themselves out of it any more than someone can will away diabetes, thyroid disease, epilepsy, etc.The reviewer below, rich muller, didn't seem to watch the mini-series very closely. Of course some of them are miserable characters! They are struggling mightily with a physical problem; their brain is not balanced right. Mr. Muller would be cranky too, if he also had this issue, left untreated. This is a very relevant film for providing both a broader view of what clinical depression can look like and the varying life outcomes depending on choices made of how to handle the condition.