I was enjoying this film thoroughly until the ending when some very important plot developments are left unresolved! The acting is excellent and the dialogue sharp and even though I recommend this film to everyone, I think everyone will have the same reaction as I did. It can't end now! I don't want to give the ending away (Or the lack of an ending)but Catherine Keener's character is about to lose her marriage and has a statutory rape charge hanging over her head and her husband is threatening to take away her daughter! Then the movie ends? I don't hate this film. I liked it. But it leaves the viewer in an unsatisfying way. These are not loose threads, but empty holes! Anyway, go see it!
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Tweekums19 August 2019This charming film is centred on Jane Marks, a woman is about to undergo liposuction, and her three daughters. These are aspiring artist Michelle, whose husband isn't very supportive; Actress Elizabeth who is worried that she isn't sexy enough to get an important role; and eight year old Annie, an adopted African American girl who wants to fit in with her white family.
It might be said that this film doesn't have much of a plot; it is more of a snapshot of a family's life while the mother is in hospital. Each of the four main characters has their neuroses which lead them into various situations; in the case of Michelle and Elizabeth that means getting involved with other people; in Michelle's case somebody much too young for her. The film answers some of the questions raised but leaves others open. The cast does a really fine job making their characters feel real. There are plenty of funny moments, sometimes with a touch of danger such as when Annie floats face-down in the pool in a way that worries people who worries she has drowned... something I recall doing when about that age! Overall I'd say that I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and would recommend it to anybody wanting a good female led drama with touches of comedy. -
Mercury-430 December 2002Stanley Kubrick's line, to me, sums my impression of this movie up completely.
It was real, but it wasn't interesting.
In all fairness, all of the lead actresses in the movie engaged me at one point or another, at least briefly. But the integral thing about their characters was that they were shallow, and remained shallow at the end.
Which is real, there are certainly people in the world who are shallow and remain shallow.
But it isn't especially interesting. -
This film is about the daily struggles for happiness of a mother and her 3 daughters.
The story is captivating from the start. The mother, played by Brenda Blethlyn, is insecure and wanted a liposuction. The eldest daughter, played by Catherine Keener, has a painfully distant husband. The middle daughter, played by Emily Mortimer, is a struggling actress with high levels of insecurity. The youngest daughter is an adopted daughter of African heritage, and she is spoilt to bits.
The dysfunction between the family is portrayed very well, due to excellent character developments. I get to understand every character's thoughts and feelings. Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer act well, and brings the characters to life. There are few films that can make the characters so vivid and alive. -
Watchable and inoffensive but hardly likely to arouse intense debate about anything, really. The performances are neat and unshowy, with Catherine Keener reliable as ever as (another) wayward hard-ass, Mulroney playing the roguish fool and Jake Gyllenhaal practising for the role he plays in The Good Girl. But Brenda Blethyn's matriarch isn't given any real depth which has got to go down as a missed opportunity. And since the story is an irrelevance, there aren't enough revelations (in fact, none) amongst the introspective musings and general angst to set this apart from any other female-orientated slice-of-life indie. It all feels a bit like Soderbergh's Full Frontal, only less constipated.
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donniefriedman28 December 2012Yes, this movie was authentic. But that was the problem. I don't look for escapism at the movies - not at all. But I do look for an intensification of regular humdrum life. If being authentic means being humdrum - well, to me that isn't art. Everything was so understated; what was missing was real drama or conflict. We were supposed to feel some sort of redemption at the end, but it didn't happen because the audience just wasn't emotionally engaged. I mean the protagonists were recognizable, but elicited no strong feelings in this viewer. Well, at least it was a cautionary tale about liposuction. I really have nothing more to say, but the guidelines require a 10-line review, so yada yada yada....
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Rogue-325 July 2002The thing that makes this movie so - I have to say it - lovely & amazing is what it doesn't do: it doesn't attempt in any shape or form to be commercial, it doesn't compromise its integrity or the integrity of its characters in any way, and it doesn't try to be cute or clever or witty or deep. It simply invites us into the characters' lives and lets us share them for a couple of hours. No judgment, no big overblown speeches, no hystrionics. No car crashes, no dead bodies, no funerals. No artifice, no heavy-handedness, no contrivances.
Nicole Holofcener achieved the same effect in Walking & Talking, which had the same 'effortless' feel to it, and the always-wonderful Catherine Keener is in both, as well. The cast also includes Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer and Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko himself!) and everyone is superb, creating beautifully nuanced and subtle characterizations that ring entirely true.
I trust Holofcener (even though I can't pronounce her name yet) - she doesn't seem like she's going to sell out and make anything remotely commercial anytime in the future, her vision is far too pure for that, which makes her lovely & amazing in my book. -
kenjha25 September 2008This is a well-made character study about a neurotic family, consisting of a mother and her three daughters, two grown and one adopted eight-year-old. Keener is terrific as the eldest daughter, who is basically angry with the world because her life is going nowhere. Mortimer is equally good as the middle daughter, a sweetly vulnerable actress coming to grips with failure in her profession. Blyth is fine as the mother and the good supporting cast features some familiar faces. Nothing much happens but it's a good to spend some time getting to know these characters. Kudos to Holofcener, who wrote and directed this comedy-drama.
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marobertson24 January 2003I was really impressed with this film. It manages to avoid all of the cliches you frequently see in Hollywood films about women and present an honest and often amusing picture of the characters' lives.
Catherine Keener is a real stand-out and I can't say enough about Raven Goodwin's performance.
This film isn't just about women. It's about the way we all see ourselves. -
phils_phan2 January 2003SPOILER: Here Jake Gyllenhaal reprises his role as the adolescent roue who somehow ends up bedding the lead (and much older actress) as he does here with Catherine Keener and with Jennifer Aniston in "The Good Girl". He is perfectly cast, though, with his dark sultry looks and scary wild eyes.
That distracting fact aside, this movie was wonderful!
The real life connection between Catherine Keener and Dermot Mulroney (real life marrieds) could have been exploited, but wasn't. Disappointing!
The only criticism I have is that the movie has no ending. SPOILER: You don't know if Ms. Keener will have to go to jail, or how her relationship with her husband ends up. The other actors' stories have missing endings as well. I guess that is the arty thing to do, but still, that was quite annoying to me!!
Brenda Blethyn isn't on camera enough and Emily Mortimer was fresh and truly lovely and amazing. I always love Catherine Keener's quirkiness, too. Brenda Blethyn really wasn't old enough (only 14 years her senior) to be the mother of Catherine, though, which really confused me at the outset of the movie when they were establishing the characters.
But all in all, I rated this movie a 7 out of 10. I recommend "The Good Girl", too!! -
marina-315 February 2007My first question in evaluating a movie is, "Why should I care about these characters?" There was no reason to care about any of these characters, and if a film doesn't start out "hooking" me into caring, I get irritated with it. These women were annoying, self-absorbed, unlikeable, and demandingly selfish. I tried to care, but was glad that I had kitchen work to do while I watched it or I'd have given up on it as a waste of time. The only reason I give it a 3 is that the acting was OK.
Why do "women's movies" think that we want to see real-life to the point that there is little redeeming value to what the characters are portrayed as going through? This movie reminded me of a person I work with who comes in every day assuming I'll be thrilled to hear about the boring details of her life and relationships. -
tredyffrin28 December 2002I really enjoyed this movie, but thought that 90 minutes did not do it justice. Though a good movie, this could be a GREAT series. The character development reminds me of that in Six Feet Under. Each character has her own issues and insecurities, but that's what makes us grow attached to her. I would love to see the next 15 "episodes" to find out what happens to them. HBO - IS ANYONE OUT THERE LISTENING???
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Groverdox2 October 2023I liked "Lovely & Amazing" more the second time. I'm more used to Nicole Holofcener's style. Her movies have been accused of being formulaic, which surprised me at first because they are not plot driven, and usually the adjective "formulaic" refers to Hollywood movies and their identikit plots. Now I can see that they kind of are formulaic, in that they're pretty much all gentle indie comedy-dramas that let us inhabit the lives of different women and the people they know.
They're always about women basically trying to do their best in the various situations life throws at them. There are details I like, such as the mother of the two having an adopted black daughter, which her daughters suspect she only took on because she was lonely. And even better, the daughter is not made out to be the typical adorable child you typically see in films. Instead, she's not even all that likeable, and typically for Holofcener, there are unexpected developments with her character and a black woman who wanted to be her big sister, but was disappointed she wasn't poor.
Imperfections. That's what these characters have, just as real people do. But this isn't a Todd Solondz movie, it's a Nicole Holofcener one, and because of that, the movie radiates love for its characters.
Holofcener's movies feel cozy and lived in. They're like retreats on the mountain of life. -
evilmatt-31 August 2002Blah.
There's just not much to this movie. I really enjoy Catherine Keener and Jake Gyllenhall normally, and this film was no different. Other than them, there's really nothing remarkable about this film.
One major grumble- the plot is stretched so thin as to be nonexistent. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that this film has no plot. No character development, no resolution of conflict, no nothing. I would say it's nihilistic but I think that a film has to at least _try_ in order to be considered nihilistic. It's like watching a weird kind of reality show that gets sentimental about its subjects. Maybe that's the tone the movie was trying for. Even if that's the case, I'm wildly unimpressed.
I will say that the trailers before this film were extraordinary, though. -
lawprof6 July 2002whenever she launched into one of her favorite themes, "American women hate their bodies." "Lovely & Amazing" takes us into the appearance-based self-image of females from eight to slightly past mid-age whose concern about their bodies is one major part of their complex, sometimes wacky and always interdependent lives.
"Lovely and Amazing" takes its place along "Kissing Jessica Stein" as a sharp, inspired view of women's lives as seen through a female director's vision brought to life by an outstanding cast.
Director Nicole Holofcener, who also wrote the script, projects a sense of balance that brings each character's life into sharp and absorbing focus. Jane, (Brenda Blethyn) the long-divorced matriarch, adopted a young black girl, Annie (Raven Goodwin). No reason given and...none needed. Jane is both wise and vulnerable, warm and vain.
Her two grown-up (entirely chronologically and partially emotionally) daughters, Michelle (Catherine Keener) and Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) lead different lives but express much mutual love for each other and with Annie. No sibling rivalry and repressed anger from a pantheon of past slights in this flick. Michelle is a caring mother of a little girl married to a guy who obviously is tired of the union but Michelle can't figure out why. Her husband may be bored and disposed to philandering but she never figures out that his complaint that she won't work but only devotes herself to creating odd objets d'art that no one wants to buy has some merit.
Elizabeth is a stray pooch-collecting film actress teetering on the edge of dwindling starletdom. Described as neurotic, she really has a basis for her career insecurity which is exacerbated by a boyfriend whose unsupportive manner borders on clinical anhedonism. Woody Allen's frequent neurotic film persona is unbounded joy compared to this guy.
Weaving through the sisters' and mom's various dilemmas is a constant concern about body contours. The rigors of liposuction (the mom's expensive treat for herself) are realistically shown - no sugar-coated subliminal push for surgical sculpting here. The scene where a naked Elizabeth demands a post-coital appendage-by-appendage evaluation by her cautious lover wryly comes close to a truth many women admit to but only amongst themselves (I assert that Upon Information and Belief, a useful lawyer's escape).
Annie, born a crack baby, now has to deal with baby fat as her important life issue. Whether she wants to or not. She's sharp and funny and the genuine ease by which her two siblings refer to her as their sister does not displace references to the reality of growing up black in an affluent white family but it does put that dimension in perspective. This is a very lucky, loved kid and the affection between the three sisters is believable. Also welcome. And just plain nice.
All four share the trait of being able to hurl four-letter expletives at the drop of a slight. It's very funny.
The men in the movie aren't so much irrelevant as they are accessories: useful, often annoying, sometimes immature but never dangerous. Or even worth looking at too closely.
Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer shine as complex characters not wholly aware of why their lives play out as they do. Neither can repress a refreshing optimism that surfaces time and again. Ms. Keener is an amazing actress!
Director Nicole Holefcener has a lot to say and I'm look forward to her next film. -
RARubin2 May 2005I've noticed something a trend perhaps in Indie Cinema, it's all about the Upper Middle Class. Are the writers, directors, of these pictures of this group? After all, even an Indie production costs millions to produce. Your average middle classer has a hard time comprehending his rent, forget getting a picture funded.
In Lovely and Amazing, the women seemed to live in a plush world of decorator pillows and jeans. Big houses or snazzy apartments are the norm, trendy villages to shop too. Emily the actress, she's not waiting on tables while she's in between lovers or parts. Nor is her older sister, ex-prom queen, Catherine in the work world post-college and kids. Her hubby has his semi-glamorous office world and mistress, and plenty of time away from the family. Little black orphan child has issues in this white comfy world, too much food perhaps? The cars are smooth and leathery without pretension, the clubbing's and veranda angst is so Bloomingdale.
In the end we suggest all these ladies get a life. -
jpsrock4 August 2002I didn't know what this movie was going to be about when i walked into the theatre. If I had I would have stayed away - on paper it's your class "chick flick" - three sisters working out their problem and a neurotic mother facing a "health crisis". However, I'm really glad I saw it because this was a not a manipulative tearjerker: Not at all: I felt like I spent time with four real human beings (the mom + 3 sisters). Catherine Keener was great in this - she was in turns immature (she loves cartoons :-)) , likable, maybe sometimes not so likeable, maybe lazy, the kind of actress for whatever reason you can't take your eyes off of. The actress daughter played by Emily Mortimer hit just the right notes of insecurity and authenticity - when the guy she sleeps with tells her not to get a boob job because "she's an original" I felt like "Yeah, she really is!". Anyways I really thought this was a good character driven movie - the director obviously had an affection for her characters and I did to - I recommend this movie.
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mgressma8 May 2002You know the Marx brothers, now meet the Marks sisters, Michelle, Elizabeth, and Annie. Their mother is Jane, played by Brenda Blethyn. Michelle is trapped in a loveless, sexless marraige. Elizabeth is hooked up with a guy whose logical approach to life rivals that of Mr. Spock. And Annie is a very young black girl (I know this sounds like something out of a Steve Martin movie, but it's true), who is very attached to her adoptive mom. "Lovely & Amazing" is an entertaining movie about this crazy family. It has everything, liposuction, statutory rape, fast food, show business, and possibly rabies.
If you're tired of all the adolescent piffle that's out there, you should give this movie a look-see. -
luce_85715 July 2005This movie is good,not great,not fantastic just good. It's quite pointless but the the fact that there is humorous bits and good acting makes up for that. The films about 3 sisters and there Mother and about there life.There all different and all have there own problems. The main sister Michelle played by Catherine Keener is trying to sell her art, but has no luck and takes a job in a photography, where she ends up having a fling with her young boss, Jorden played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The other sister Elizabeth, played by Emily Mortimer is making it into the movie business, already appearing in a film,but has her confidence set back when she doesn't feel as if she's sexy. The youngest sister Annie(Raven Goodwin)was adopted and is dark skinned, so she finds it hard sometimes being bought up in a family with a different race. The mother Jane(Brenda Blethyn)is quite lonely despite having 3 daughters and tries to flirt with her doctor while having surgery that has some bad Side effects. To be honest I only saw this film because of Jake Gyllenhaal and I wasn't disappointed, he wasn't in it for long though,which I wasn't to pleased about, but when he was he looked very good looking and acted really well, along with all the other actors and I think thats what also saves the film. I thought at the end it left too many Untied knots and there were a few things that I didn't really like about it, but aside from that it was an OK film, but like I said before a bit unnecessary, but I quite enjoyed it and if your a fan of any of the actors in this, then I would recommend this chick flick!
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chiudennis19 August 2002"Lovely & Amazing" is one of those rare films about women that does the gender justice.
I must admit to a pet peeve about the portrayal of women in movies. I find far too often that women are used as the mechanism for the downfall of men. It has been this way since Eve allegedly tempted Adam to taste the forbidden fruit, or Samson entrusted his hair to Delilah and so on. A shining example is Martin Scorcese's "Casino" where drugged-out Ginger, portrayed by Sharon Stone, leads Sam, portrayed by Robert DeNiro, into ruin. I hate that. I think it's misogynistic.
More recent depictions of groups of women have taken on a "Sex in the City" flair, case in point is the "Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood". I find these depictions uninteresting popular fantasies that attempt to empower women by shooting them full of testosterone, creating in them the lasciviousness of men. Yes, it empowers women by tearing down traditional sexual roles, but ignores a serious multi-dimensional look of women's lives in total.
"Lovely & Amazing" portrayed women in total. It is the story of a Mother and her two daughters at a time of growth and change in their lives.
One important symbolic scene depicts one of the daughters, Elizabeth (portrayed by Emily Mortimer), naked asking to be told the truth about her body. She hears that one breast is slightly larger than the other, that her pubic hair needs to be trimmed, that one eye is larger than the other, that her upper arms are a little flabby, and her teeth are a little yellow. She also hears that her breast look beautifully natural, that her hips are wonderful and that she is well proportioned. Through this scene we realize that Elizabeth is beautiful because of her imperfections. We remember why the statue of the "Venus De Milo" with her missing arms and legs is so beautiful. This one scene is the essence of the film and what I seek in these types of films.
The entire film reaches for truth and honesty in the depiction of the main characters. The mother, Jane Marks (portrayed by Brendy Blethyn), daughter Michelle (portrayed by Catherien Keener) and Elizabeth genuinely depict the lives of these women and their inner turmoil.
Jake Gyllinhaal and Dermot Mulroney turn in some fine work as the love interests that truly appreciated the Keener and Mortimer characters.
My one small problem with the film was that watching it made me feel a little like listening to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" (used often, most famously perhaps at JFK's funeral and in Oliver Stone's village burning scene in "Platoon") where the music reaches mournfully higher and higher, never consumating the notes or the emotions until the very end. I love that music and this film, but it would have been nice if the film provided some resting points along the way.
My score is 9 out of 10 or ***3/4* out of ****. -
mweston15 October 2002This is a film about Jane Marks (Brenda Blethyn) and her three daughters. Jane is reasonably well off but is getting older and heavier, and, hoping to improve her love life, decides to undergo liposuction. Besides herself, she also obsesses about how *other* things look, buying so many pillows to put on her bed that one of her daughters remarks that there is nowhere to sleep. And Jane is also very particular about how they are arranged.
Jane's oldest daughter is Michelle (Catherine Keener). Michelle was the high school homecoming queen, continuing the image obsession pattern, but that seems to have been the high point of her life. She is married with one daughter, but the marriage is far from a happy one. She makes crafts, exemplified by some overdone miniature chairs, and tries unsuccessfully to sell them. She is a very angry woman, using the F-word frequently and wondering why other people don't do the same. She hasn't ever had a real job.
The next daughter is Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer), who is an actress with some small level of success but is very insecure. She is unmarried and has no children, although she is unable to resist bringing home stray dogs. Her nature journalist boyfriend is no help in the self esteem department, seemingly having infinite disdain for everything she does. When we first see Elizabeth, she is posing for a photo for a fashion magazine to promote a film she has a small part in. She is uncomfortable with the clothes and with the heavy makeup, but reluctantly goes along with the shoot anyway because she doesn't feel she has a choice.
The final daughter is much younger. Annie (first time actress Raven Goodwin) is an 8 year old adopted black girl who is close to her mother but not her two much older sisters. She is overweight, but her image issues also involve her skin color and her hair. She freely tells anyone who asks that her birth mother was a crack addict.
The men in the film have smaller roles because this is a film about (but not exclusively for) women. They include Jane's cosmetic surgeon, Michelle's husband, Elizabeth's boyfriend, Kevin McCabe (a star who Elizabeth reads for a part with, played by Dermot Mulroney), and one more I won't mention since to explain his role would give away a small plot point.
Okay, if you insist. If you want to avoid learning more about the plot, *skip the rest of this paragraph and all of the next one...* Michelle does eventually decide to take a real job, although she just takes the first job she sees, developing snapshots at a one hour photo place. Despite the fact that Michelle reminds her 17 year old boss (Jake Gyllenhaal) of his mother, he is attracted to her (he does comment that his mother is cute).
[*keep skipping*] The scene that is most talked about is one in which Elizabeth stands naked in front of Kevin McCabe and insists that he critique her body with complete honesty. He agrees only under extreme duress. She is particularly self conscious about her arms, which she believes are flabby but which he does not mention until she asks.
This is the second film that writer/director Nicole Holofcener has made, and I think that she has succeeded very well in making a highly original film with very interesting characters. Some people feel that the dialog is very good, although on occasion it felt a bit off to me. The story doesn't really go much of anywhere, but that's not really the point of a film like this. The acting was uniformly very good among the adult Marks women. I thought Raven Goodwin was also very good as Annie, which is slightly surprising since the only other child in the film was Michelle's daughter, who may not even have had any lines (I can't remember any).
I did not learn until after the film had ended that it had been shot on 24 frame/second high definition video and later transferred to film. While the look is not that of a highly polished Hollywood film, the quality of the picture was fine throughout.
I saw the film at the Camera Cinema Club in San Jose, CA on 7/14/2002. It is recommended to anyone who likes original independent films. -
majic-525 November 2007Look into nearly any family, and you can find dysfunction. If I'm going to spend 90 minutes watching a movie about a neurotic, middle-class white mother, her two neurotic, middle-class daughters, and an adopted black girl with self-esteem issues and an eating disorder, I want there to be a story related to their dysfunction, not simply a slice of their exasperating lives. I want people to change, mature, transform. I want interesting things to happen to justify watching unaware, immature, self-absorbed, self-destructive behavior for an hour and a half. But that's all this film gives, unless you count the reminder that all men are unsupportive, insensitive, philandering pigs.
Clearly, I'm not in the target demographic. -
I watched this in a women's studies film series. It is a very complex, but amazing movie. It covers so many issues that plague our society, from body image, racism, and sexism, to adoption and relationships. Basically, it's the story of a mother and her three daughters who are all "broken" in one way or another and how they are able to come to terms with the reality of their lives. There's no hero in this movie, no true voice of reason, and that's what makes it more believable, as it emulates reality in so many ways. It's impossible not to empathize with at least one of the characters and the film poses some interesting questions about how we view ourselves and others.It's definitely a must-see for mothers and daughters.
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generic2303 September 2002Look, this movie was really enjoyable. It was like watching through the window of someone's house, which I like to do. If you don't like doing that and you need formulaic movies as prescribed by Syd Fields, then this isn't gonna be your cup of tea. But, honestly, so it's no f-ing masterpiece, that doesn't mean it's a piece of crap. It was GOOD. And these days, that should be reward enough. You can't drink $500 bordeaux every day, but that doesn't mean that a really good $20 bottle of wine is a horror. Just enjoy.
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alexander2221 July 2002Lovely & Amazing has to be one of the worst movies of the year. The acting was terrible (and I normally love Brenda Blethyn and Catherine Keener), the script was poorly written, and so many of the scenes were simply not believable at all. And why did all the characters in the movie have to be such losers? I wanted to leave halfway through, but against my better judgement I stayed hoping it would get better. It didn't!