Watch To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

Strong and Moving!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996): Dir: Michael Pressman / Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter Gallagher, Claire Danes, Kathy Baker, Bruce Altman: Confusing film starring Peter Gallagher whose wife, played by Michelle Pfeiffer dies in a sailing accident. After a year he begins to see her image leaving those around him to voice concerns on his parental rights. Pfeiffer appears numerous times including a confusing dream sequence. Miserable screenplay with an uninspiring ending. Directing by Michael Pressman is dreadful with Pfeiffer completely wasted in a role of no given goal. What is she attempting to prove here? Perhaps messing with her widowed husband is some sort of kick. Why not do something positive, like leave the film and find somebody elses birthday to screw up? Gallagher is the one sensible casting seeing that he plays a guy struggling with the death of his wife. The downfall is that he is screwed over by his greedy pig-headed so- called friends. Claire Danes has nightmares and does other weird sh*t that involves appearing in this film. Kathy Baker plays one of those friends that you do not invite back again. She desires to take child custody away from Gallagher because he is grieving. What kind of selfish tyrant does that? Theme regards dealing with death. Someone should send Gillian a decent screenplay for her 38th birthday. Score: 2 ½ / 10

I was in a community theater production of Gillian, and my comments echo another review here.(Contains spoilers)David E. Kelley's screenplay used almost none of playwright Michael Brady's dialogue, the characters were obnoxious, and they made Cindy into sleazy little tramp instead of a complex character who uses attitude to cover real growing pains. Esther was just a vicious harpy and Kevin had no substance to her. Rachel gets drunk at a party, and SHE saw Gillian? He also basically scrapped the whole anthropologist angle, and the abortion vignette, which was so key to David realizing that he had indeed constructed an icon divorced from reality. And of course, Paul, my character, was just a tool!

This is one of the worst play-to-film adaptations I've ever seen. Of course, that's because it's a terrible hack job of one of my favorite stage plays, so I'm biased.It does my heart good to see David E. Kelley completely bombing out every time he tries to make a feature film. The guy is so overrated (in my opinion.) And he really, REALLY blew it with this movie, considering how excellent, how genuinely moving the source material is.When I went to see the film (with well-founded trepidation), I noticed that the only laughs generated out of the dialogue were for jokes that are found in the original play. Unfortunately, Kelley has done great violence to the original story in his filmic massacre...I mean "adaptation"...and the movie falls flat, flat, flat. It utterly misses the deeper points of the stage drama.In fact, except for the basics of plot, it barely resembles the award-winning play at all. Esther, instead of being a professional psychologist, becomes in the movie version a busybody nag who has taken a couple of psychology classes, which somehow qualifies her to analyze the main character David. Pretty lame.David E. Kelley (not the main character, thank God), in his infinite wisdom, turns Cindy into a horny little slut who tries to seduce Paul, instead of keeping her the teenage girl next door who has the sweet, and somehow sad, schoolgirl crush on David. Gillian's depth and complexity of character completely disappears. In the film she's merely an ethereal beauty who hangs around to inanely chat with David. The point of the play is that she's both saint and sinner -- something Esther wants David to remember, before he idealizes her into a fantasy that drives him literally crazy.Ugh! I could go on, but it will simply make me angrier and angrier. This movie stinks. Read the play. It's only a hundred thousand times better than the movie, that's all.

OK, I know that this movie is based on a play, but still, does the main idea expressed by Peter Gallagher need to directly reflect a line said by John Cage on Ally McBeal 3 years later? Gallagher's character says that while he experiences this "fantasy", he is happy, happier than he is in the real world. John Cage tells Ally that you can't find happiness in the real world, and that is why she is only happy in her imaginary world. Hmmmmmmmm.... This seems a little redundant to me, but as long as we don't see the ghost of Happy Boyle on Ally McBeal, I can forgive DEK.As for the overall movie, I give this movie an 8 out of 10 stars.