All Around the Town (2002 TV Movie) User Reviews (11)

The epitome of a tv movie

[sumrrain · 6/10 · 21 May 2002]

Not a bad flick. It was enjoyable, but when the movie reached its conclusion, it was equivalent to a soda which had gone flat. Not bad, still drinkable, just missing that pop and fizz.

I fail to see why they advertised this as "STARRING NASTASSJA KINSKI." She did not star. She supported. In a MINOR role. Would that she HAD starred, but the storyline would have needed to be adjusted to account for her age. Not that she is ancient. She is lovely, as usual. She just didn't have much to do.

Michael Shanks as the psychiatrist has the shining role in this film. I had never seen him in anything before, but came away thinking "he is one to watch." I believe the actress with the lead role was Kim Schraner. NOT one to watch. Her performance was standard and cliche. Someone should have told her, "Playing someone with a multiple personality disorder does not mean you need to slam your two palms on either side of your head every time a new 'alter' appears."

The plotline with the tv evangelist was a little murky. I still do not entirely understand what happened with that. I guess you had to read the book. For me, Mary Higgins Clark writes great suspense, but with cardboard characters. With the exception of Michael Shanks, the cast of this movie largely fulfills that prerequisite. (I exempt Nastassja, because her part was so peripheral).

An average, but quick paced tv melodrama.

Story Outweighs All

[travisimo · 4/10 · 26 November 2003]

I knew something was amiss when we started this movie. The awful soundtrack repeated itself over and over and over. And I just loved the theme song that played each time the villains were shown. Just priceless!

Obviously, this is no Titanic, but hey, we spent the same $3.59 to rent this baby as we would have with any other movie, so I'm going to complain anyway! Cheesy acting, cheesy direction, and a cheesy production value made this movie almost laughable.

But then I was somewhat involved with the story. It wasn't perfect and didn't quite make much sense, but at least I paid attention through the whole thing. The same can't be said for Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life.

Overall, I'd say it was decent. As my mom notes, story should outweigh all, and it holds great weight in how I view this movie.

My IMDB Rating: 4/10 My Yahoo! Grade: C (Mediocre)

kind of a cut-rate Sybil

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 20 July 2010]

Definitely Canadian-made, with Nastassja Kinski, whom I haven't seen in years, getting all of the casting budget. The rest of the actors were Canadian and not known to me - therefore, for a while, it was difficult to tell the blondes apart and the young leading men apart from one another. I didn't recognize Kinski at first (I forgot she was in it).

Anyway, the story is Sybil-esquire. A girl is abducted as a child, comes home two years later - flash forward to adulthood. She's a college student, and one of her professors is murdered. She is accused, and her sister, who works for the D.A.'s office, goes on leave to defend her.

This is a typical Sonny Grosso production - that godawful music and a draggy pace. The story held my interest, and the acting ranged from good to adequate. The lead woman was quite good, except when she cried, she wasn't crying and needed the glycerin they use to fake tears. Not in the budget I guess. Not sure what's up with Kinski - she is still beautiful certainly and she was always a good actress. At the time of this TV-movie, she was about 42 years old - I suppose with her ingenue days over, the going got tougher.

Entertaining if you can tell everyone apart. To me a lot of them looked alike.

A mess indeed

[twilightseer · 14 August 2003]

I may be one of the very few people in the world who have never read a Mary Higgins Clark book and I have no idea if this is a faithful adaptation, but if it is, it sure won't be an incentive for me to run to the bookshop. This movie is just an average thriller whose cruel lack of originality is hardly masked by purely artificial "complexity". Actually, it really looks like the writers took almost all of the cliches of the genre and threw them into the mix : intertwined stories of kidnapping and murder, suspect with "multiple personalities", creepy couple of bad guys, understanding sister, wonderful shrink, cunning private investigator, angry boyfriend, jealous woman : all these elements loosely combined together cannot be considered as a plot, sorry. The acting, doesn't do much to help this lousy story : while the actress who plays Laurie does a decent job (despite the fact that she yells a lot), Nastassja Kinski delivers a remarkably poor performance : apparently, she doesn't give a damn and keeps her eyes half-closed during the entire movie. I guess she just needed the money. To conclude, I would only recommend this to die-hard Clark fans who will probably dig it. I for one will wait a long time until I get one of her novels or watch another adaptation of them.

The book was better

[rdetjen · 6/10 · 13 December 2007]

It was an okay movie, but they didn't get in depth enough and I felt like the book was so much better that it makes me want to read the book over to see if it's my imagination. But it's better than a lot of things, and I watched the whole thing so that gives it some definite advantages over a lot of things. The characters seemed shallow and their acting seemed forced. That was disappointing. It only skims the surface of the book, which I was disappointed in. I really liked the ending though, and that was a major plus in it's favor. Overall I think it's better than some of the other books made into movies and I look forward to seeing some of her others.

Multiple Personality Murder

[megan_chatterton · 7/10 · 5 December 2021]

This is a fairly good adaptation of the novel. The acting was pretty good and the story was a bit more unique than the other Mary Higgins Clark movies I've seen.

Liked It Despite The Cheesiness Factor!

[nansee · 10/10 · 4 September 2003]

FYI this movie just came out on video. I noticed it along with a few other MHC videos when I was at the video store, and since I had a rent-one-get-one-free coupon and like suspense, I decided to check it out.

First and most important, I liked it! Knowing it was a TV movie, I didn't go into it expecting `Citizen Kane.' I haven't read the book, and I'm embarrassed to say it, but I didn't figure out the ending. (Yes, I'm pretty dense, so I guess you have to take that into account.) It's definitely one of the most heinously cliché-filled movies I've ever seen, but I really don't think it matters. It's entertaining.

The story as told in the movie is of a now college-aged woman named Laurie who was kidnapped and molested when she was a little girl. She has now developed multiple personalities to cope with it, and when an English professor she is close to is killed, she's the main suspect. Her sister and a psychiatrist try to help her. The weakest part of the movie is the return of the couple who kidnapped Laurie. Maybe this part of the plot is covered better in the novel because what's here seems to have some gaps. It was still interesting, but it's one of those things where I wonder if the director had to trim the movie down and cut out the part that explained what the hell the deal was.

Other than that, I thought the acting was pretty good. I liked Andrea Roth as the older sister, and Kim Schraner as Laurie was good at doing the multiple personality thing except for several moments of probably unintentional complete out-of-control cheesiness. But I think they fit right in. The movie's biggest bonus is that the psychiatrist is played by Michael Shanks from Stargate SG-1, who I didn't realize was in the movie when I rented it (The video box gives Nastassja Kinski top billing, and she is in very few scenes.) He actually has a pretty big role in the movie, which is fine with me because as I was watching, I realized he's almost good-looking enough to make me pass out. In fact, I'm now in favor of human cloning.

So, if you like suspense/mystery, have a rent-one-get-one-free coupon, and want to give your brain a break and drool over Michael Shanks for 90 minutes, I recommend it!

Good act with not so good story

[lia00027 · 7/10 · 19 June 2003]

Kim who play Laurie is a clever actress, she can be different girl and have a lot of potential to be a good actress not just because her beautiful body or her beautiful face.

The story is easy to think if we look it again in second time. I already look it in many times, but the first time I saw it I know that this film must be take from good novel from Marry Higgins Clark. Too bad Laurie can not make a couple with Dr. Donnely.

Disappointing

[primordialtwinkl · 24 September 2005]

Okay, so I read the book and I LOVED it... it was probably one of my favorite books I've read! I was so excited to hear that there was a movie made of it so as soon as I finished the book I ran and watched the movie... and it was so disappointing!! Too much of it was left out that I am sure if I never read the book that I would have totally hated it and been confused... it just seemed too choppy... I guess it was because the book was too long to be a movie, but if they had try to squish that much stuff from the book into a 2 hour movie then it shouldn't have been made... or they should have made it extremely long, which also would have been annoying. But anyway... I am not sure whether I would have liked it if I never read the book by I might have... but I guess I will never know!

Impressed

[FunkyLee32 · 10/10 · 30 November 2003]

I was very impressed with the acting in this Tv movie, I thought that Christine Casarsa did very well with her role as Young Sarah, though I thought that the girl who played young laurie looked a bit older than 4, the acting over all was WONDERFUl, both leads (Sarah,Laurie) Cast very well!, Very good plot too!

HUH????

[zollywog · 18 July 2003]

OK?? This was the most confusing movie I've seen in a long time! Nothing Makes sense! A girl with spilt personalities is accused of murdering her college professor who was actually murdered by his wife, yet the people who kidnapped the college girl as a child causing her to have had split personalities are involved in setting up the murder? Why? For what reason? Don't waste your time. Read the book it must provide more critical information! Otherwise you'll watch the entire movie wondering how on earth all these characters are tied together and then never find out at the end! Awful! I'm going to develop split personalities myself trying to figure this out!