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Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Instant Favorite.

best movie i've ever seen.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I loved the book and was so excited to see the movie. I was impressed with the book to television adaptation. This movie was so dead-on with the casting. Each and every character was exactly as I imagined. The scenes with Randall, the strained family encounters, even the kitchen scenes were just right. Such small things have remained in my memory- like the shoes under the bed and the father distancing himself from the realities of what his family ended up being. Angelica Houston's portrayal of a divorced older woman was perfection. I have been looking for this movie on DVD and would love to see it again. This is a book I reread often.

I thought this was one of the most moving & original, as well as one of the best-acted teleplays, that I've seen in a long long time. Very moving. I'm not the mother of a disabled child so I can't speak to Anjelica Huston's portrayal as the mother, but I felt sympathetic to her. I also felt sympathetic to the father's position, which proves the strength of this teleplay. You get to see all sides and no one was judged; everyone, including the children of the couple, are just set forth in all their good and bad points. It's a pretty remarkable story, in that these people seem real -- it's not some adaptation of a Danielle Steel fantasy; these people could be your neighbors. I really appreciated that this is fairly true adaptation of the book, as well. I recommend this to anyone who wants to see great acting all around, and a story that's realistically portrayed.

I am the parent of a grown son with a form of autism. Life with a special needs child can be chaotic, especially with a diagnosis that is very vague and so unpredictable. When you have a child with this disorder, you live in "their world" a lot of the time and so do their siblings. It can become indistinguishable. I felt that Anjelica Huston's performance was so powerful that I would believe that she had actually lived it. I can relate to her. First of all, her protectiveness of her son. She always wanted to include him even though it was not necessarily best for him or for the rest of the family. There have been so many times I have tried to do the same thing. Secondly, she was always trying to make things right with him and keep the peace. You feel so much guilt when things aren't right with your children. The siblings are definitely effected and influenced. Their lives become different also, but not necessary in a negative way. I felt they captured many of the same feelings my daughter has dealt with and is dealing with today. Sam O'Neill gave a compelling performance as the father. Unfortunately, the mother could not see beyond her pain and grief to appreciate a husband who was there initially and cared so much. Because she was unable to deal with this devastating reality of life and her feelings of failure as a mother, she drove him away. I felt this movie was not about autism, but about the lives affected by it. Well done!

Having autistic children myself has left me with very high standards for film treatments of this disorder, but I have never seen a movie that infuriated and insulted me more than this one. Every family relationship in this movie is fake, and the focus is entirely on the mother, played by Anjelica Huston, not on the autistic son, Randall. His problem only exists in so far as it affects her - he is handicapped, she suffers; the strain turns her husband to womanizing, and she suffers; husband leaves, son turns violent and has to be sent away, and she suffers. It's easy to see who is the star in this family, and who deserves all our pity and consideration. In addition to the phony family dynamics, there are simple matters of everyday life that don't add up. A family splits up and one of the members is severely handicapped, but this doesn't seem to affect anyone financially at all - dad just moves to his own apartment, and mom and the kids keep living the life of southern planters in a big old Victorian house; she doesn't even have to go to work, not even when Randall is instutionalized in a fine (and therefore expensive) school where he finally learns to eat normally and communicate. Once the problem child is out of the way, dad returns home and everything is peachy again, and nobody seems to find this the least bit disgusting, or think such a gutless husband and father is perhaps not worth having.It's the ending, though, that really left me outraged; once Randall is run over by a car and killed, mom in a great burst of feminist liberation shouts "I'm free! I'm free!" kicks dad out and divorces him, and out of nowhere embarks upon a successful and satisfying career as a theatrical scene painter. Turns out that despite her devotion to her handicapped son, she always saw him as a total lost cause and never loved him as much as she did her normal children. Thank goodness he does the right thing at last and dies so that she can get on with doing what she wants with her much more important life. This is a selfish "do your own thing" screed masquerading as a serious look at a serious disability, and I found it utterly disgusting. There was only one good thing about it, and that was the performance of Dermott Mulroney as the older brother, Mack. He was realistic and rough-edged, and was the only real person in the entire movie.