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the audience applauded

Powerful

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

That's how you should look at it. TBH I skipped a lot of scenes because I was looking forward to Alan Rickman and I couldn't bear listening to the dialogue, it was hard to understand their accent, and somehow the feeling was weird. However, I gotta say this movie has a lot of symbolism, as someone put it perfectly on a comment in youtube, of how Potter is Peter Pan who seduces lost boys, of Stella as Wendy who sadly escapes her childhood in a very very twisted way and O'Hara as Captain Hook whose actor usually play both Captain Hook and Wendy's father. I have never been a fan of Peter Pan, that thing is just so creepy and it annoys me the idea of that selfish little pretty boy. This movie annoys me as well, the feeling is too personal it's almost weird to see those ugly things reenacted on screen. Not a lot of people get the deeper layer of meaning of this movie if they don't see the relationship between the play and the movie itself. I would not like to see O'Hara as a child molester even though he seems to be. The dark side of the industry I believe. Girls are expected to be slutty very, very soon; and though it's kind of disgusting O'Hara took her but he had a reason indeed, and that reason turned out quite nasty later on. Very, very sad indeed. I'm quite confused when it comes to talk about rating this movie. It is terrific, but it's too dark, too angst, too depressed - not that these qualities mean it's bad like a lot of usual audiences would think - I think usually people expect the light at the end of the tunnel, but with all respect to reality and in connection with Peter Pan, sorry Wendy has to grow up. And life can be quite nastier than you think. It is just, very depressing. But still a deep and high quality movie. But controversial, indeed.

What a strange title to give a film about some of the ugliest characters you'll ever come across. This film could have been put out by those who felt for centuries that "theater folk" are people to stay FAR away from - their nasty name-calling, their preying on the young, their perversions, their plain meanness - can't be rubbed away as easily as the darkness drawn by any numbered make-up. Whew, what an ugly UGLY group of people. I shivered. You'll want a bath after this one. The acting, sets, costumes were first rate - particularly Nicola Pagett, Hugh Grant, Alun Armstrong, Peter Firth, and the girl playing the lead (whose name now escapes me). It was wonderful to see Pagett in a film again (she was superb not only in Upstairs Downstairs but as the greatest Anna Karenina yet seen in the 10 hour series). I was also pleased to see Rita Tushingham in too small a part as the aunt. If you like watching bullies gather together in playgrounds to attack, kick, and tear apart the clothes, confidence, limbs and self-esteem of the smallest and youngest, you may however find this appealing. For me, this is one of the darkest and most depressing films I've ever seen.

The likely reason people don't like this film is because it was released by Miramax who are infamous for mis-marketing their tough sell pictures ("Muriel's Wedding" was a feel good, laugh a minute romantic comedy? "Captives" was a thriller!). This movie isn't a sweet coming of age story. It's a devastating account of a young woman's loss of innocence in a cruel world.I tend to really like the movies most people find too depressing. Like the ancient Greeks I find human tragedy the greatest form of emotional catharsis. If you are the same way I recommend this film highly.

I've been curious about this movie for a long time. I finally saw it on IFC.It was great! In this age of VERY expensive, predictable, committee-approved "art", I was relieved to watch this story unfold. Although I suspected early on about the relationship between Cates and Rickman's characters, it's execution was much better than the usual pap that pretends to be a surprise or twist.Or even interesting.The real twists in this story, was its own mirror of the real human forces and decisions that keep some of the sweetest, and unfortunately, worst stories going on. The twists were the tiny reasons why such things, sometimes painful and abhorrent to our collective cultural sense of what's right and decent in a society, to continue within it.The hypocrisy of denying that these dark parts of ourselves exist often cause them to continue. Often times, the self-appointed moral-police of our culture make this inevitable in their pursuit of human frailty, the aftermath of its hunt, and the white-washing of the events (and non-events) they discovered.No character represented total evil, good, decadence or purity, including Stella. She had as much (subtle) emotional weaponry with her, as she had emotional scars.Many Americans don't like, or have been trained (over time) to not have patience for such imperfect main-characters in fiction anymore. The one-dimensional, mass-marketed character, is the norm here now.That's sad. Because of that, this movie (and others like it) didn't do very well here.Having this story take place within the entertainment industry is an excellent way of displaying so much of the world's human tragedy AND stupidity being covered up by some people's treachery, some people's nobility, or a combination of both.And even at the end of this tale, all of the stage crew, like life itself, executed their own particular versions of the adage, "The show must go on."No perfect hollywood story here, with it's base and stupid doling out of come-uppance of everyone's flaws...or Evil.