"Mid-Life Crisis" movies

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in." -Ricky Fitts

Amazing.

"Let's never come here again because it will never be as much fun." -Charlotte.

Possibly the most visually mouth-wateringly beautiful film ever created. Easily, the best of the three films directed by Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, L.I.T. & Marie Antoinette). The gorgeous scenery of night time, neon-lit Tokyo to the bright, natural shrines of Kyoto is the perfect setting. Surrounded by all the outer beauty, there's an inner beauty which lies in the characters of Bob and Charlotte. There's a perfectly suiting lack of dialogue between the two throughout the film which develops the characters much better than any long conversation. Bill & Scarlett are phenomenal. Rivalling only Delpy and Hawke in the on-screen chemistry department. I found Ms. Johansson annoying until I viewed this and realized she's possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. The direction is nothing short of extraordinary. Coppola is undoubtedly a genius.

"As a girl you see the world as a giant candy store filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and you see a prison..." -Justine

Surprisingly, this is a very good movie. The plot doesn't exactly move a mile a minute, but in this case the slow pace helps the film. Since the cast of characters are all waiting around for the "huge event" to happen, the audience feels as if they're waiting too. This really gives the viewer a connection with the characters, specifically Anniston's lonely Justine. Her performance is perfect. Everyone knows her as the perky Rachel from the TV sitcom "Friends" and this trasferred into her film career. It seems as if she plays the same character (Rachel) in every film she's featured in. But "The Good Girl" is different, she plays the weathered and pesimistic Justine, a broken woman whose lost her zeal for life... a polar opposite of Rachel. Her performance is very believable. You can't help but root for her in her struggle against her world. And although she's Gyllenhaal and Reilly are great supporting too. The main problem with the film was the marketing. It was advertised as a funny Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy but it's really not. There's very little comedy in comparison to tragedy and I would hardly classify it as romantic either. Therefore, the people who wouldn't like it saw it while the people who would like it, didn't. It's a shame because this is truely a film unlike any other.

"I found out what the secret to life is... friends... Best friends." -Ninny Threadgoode

Although this film overflows with southern charm, it lacks a lot of emotion that it had the potential to posess. In the book, Idgie and Ruth had a romantic relationship but for the screen adaptation, it's replaced by friendship with some strong lesbian undertones. So the film tones itself down in a hypocritcal way... In one scene, Idgie states "You gotta stop worring about what other people think." I'm pretty unfamiliar with Mary Stuart Masterson, but she gave a stellar performance here. Jessica Tandy is (as always) on form but Kathy Bates is really the one that steals the show! The vast majority of laughs are produced by her and her mid life crisis. I found that Mary Louise Parker (the actress that played Ruth) not very likeable, especially in comparison with the three other female leads. All in all, it's a pretty average movie. Besides the blatant censorship and the horrible title, it does deal with racial and sexual conflict issues that other "unintellectual" films won't tackle.