I really thought I’d seen this before – Juliette Lewis as a mentally retarded young woman really rang a bell – but I think maybe I’d just seen clips on some TV movie review show. It’s a pretty long movie (over 2 hours) for its type but it never really felt like it lagged for me.

It has a pretty nice cast – Juliette Lewis, as I said, Diane Keaton as her slightly (excuse me, did I say slightly? lol) overbearing mother (gives to gay causes, supports gay causes, heck they even gave her a plaque but she can’t cope with her own daugher, Lewis’ sister, being gay, lol), Tom Skerritt as her father (a recovering alcoholic and a basically generally sweet man – amazing how different Skerritt looks without a moustache), and Giovanni Ribisi as her (also mentally retarded) prospective boyfriend. My stepdad also pointed out Juliet Mills, Hayley Mills’ sister, who has a small role as a maid. Of course, this is a Garry Marshall movie, so Hector Elizondo appears towards the end too, and he’s always a pleasure to see.

I love Garry Marshall as a director. He’s one of my ‘weird’ personal selections for favourite directors, like Bronwyn Hughes (Forces of Nature, Harriet the Spy). I love how he just uses random, real things in his scenes that may seem at first cheesy and odd but are totally real. I’ve gotta watch The Princess Diaries 2 and Raising Helen again some time too. He doesn’t make incredible, wow, standalone masterpieces of cinema, but he at least has a fun time doing what he does and he always does something different when he can.

Juliette Lewis often annoys me, and Juliette Lewis as a mentally retarded person sounded like it would drive me nuts or worse, make me laugh my ass off for all the wrong reasons … but this performance is pretty incredible, possibly the best of hers that I’ve seen (I have a soft spot for her in From Dusk Till Dawn but that has nothing to do with her talent, lol …). I particularly love her scene when she’s looking in the mirror at herself trying to mimick a “normal” girl who in the previous scene was trying to pull their computer teacher by showing off her midriff. Having said all that, I feel the urge to say how good Giovanni Ribisi is in his role, too. It’s easy to screw up this kind of character, I mean, there’s this sense in which you kind of have to, basically, physically sound like “an idiot,” and yet not be “an idiot” about it. They both do a great job.

The movie has a really interesting soundtrack, very like Marshall’s The Princess Diaries. Which I guess leads me to the cutest moment in the movie – Ribisi and Lewis’ kiss, dressed respectively as a puppydog and a swan, to the sound of “When You Say Nothing At All” as sung by Alison Krauss. One of my favourite movie kisses ever. I may never watch this movie again, but I think that image will stay with me forever and a moment like that really kinda makes a movie like this. This movie may finally push me into bringing half-stars into my ratings system, because 3 stars is truly too low for this one, while 4 seems a little high right now. Thinks again – Okay I’ll admit … I was writing this before the movie was over (a bad habit, I try not to do it, but I just have tooo much to do right now to spend time on reviews) and what the heck, I’m giving it 4 stars, the ending is typical Garry Marshall cuteness (“I can’t do better because I’m not better! ... I can love! ... We can take care of each other, we don’t need you, mother!”). Really, rather than Raising Helen and Princess Diaries 2, I should probably maybe give Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride another chance, ‘cos I previously kinda hated those ‘cos I don’t really like Julia Roberts much. Looking at his resumé there’s actually a whole bunch I never knew he was at the helm of, I need to modify my Blockbuster list

Additional I have no place else to put this but since I already admitted to writing the review while watching the movie, I have to add: oh wow, Hector Elizondo has one more scene towards the end, I was worried it was only gonna be the one; and oh cool, even the little lesbian subplot is resolved at the last minute.

Awesome movie. It’s going really cheap at Amazon.co.uk right now. Grr. I hate temptation.

Olive juice. Hehe

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 1:28 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.