Really Surprised!

As Good As It Gets

A Disappointing Continuation

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Take a lot of talented and funny actresses, put them in a set up that should work and then sit back and wait for laughter. That was the plan anyway. Sadly it doesn't work and this film is poor, often coming off as a cheaper version of Sex and the city without the bite.It's talky, it's glib, it's a lot of old nothing really, with some scenes not feeling linked despite being straight after each other. The two girls (and Diane Keaton) try their best but come on, they must know it isn't working.The only bright spot of the film is Walter Matthau, who sadly makes his last appearance on screen before his death. Sadly he can't elevate this film but does have some smart lines and still manages to act his co-stars off the screen. We miss you Walter.

A completely pointless film. Its a case of where do I start!? Meg Ryan's character appears to sit in the house all day wearing full make up looking like a supermodel yet she's deeply distressed by her fathers illness so she pouts a little bit. Any humour Walter Matthau could have brought to the film was quickly dissipated by the lack of script and screen time for him. After watching this film I still don't understand what it's about, I see Lisa Kudrow, Meg Ryan & Dianne Keating all dressed up with no party to go to. Whatever the writers were trying to convey didn't work and they managed to accomplish FAIL.

That they made a television documentary on this is truly incredible. The suspicion has to be that Diane Keaton's ego is simply too big.It seems every time Delia helps Nora, things fall apart. Look at what Nora's done on her own and then look at what she got help with from 'sis'. It will be hard for you to find a single movie Delia was on that was not an abject failure.And if you thought First Wives Club was the most painful cinematic experience of your life, then you're ready for the ultimate pain: this one, miswritten by Delia Ephron from a book with the same name and misdirected by Diane Keaton.Matthau and Ryan are best - no one cannot love Walter and no one's ever resisted Meg, and both are very good actors and they work very well together - as in IQ where they were both eminently memorable.But nothing can save this garbage. Why studios allocate so much money to a project run by Diane Keaton? No one wants to hurt her feelings, but she doesn't worry much about hurting ours. Hers is a myopia where she just can't see how horrible she is at this game of movie making.And the Annie Hall hat? Did she really have to?Below bottom run on all counts.

HANGING UP (2000) *1/2 Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau, Adam Arkin, Cloris Leachman, Jesse James, Edie McClurg.When did Nora Ephron lose her razor sharp comic bile and effervescent wit? I'd be hard pressed to guess at her debacle at directing the laugh free `Mixed Nuts' that made her directing debut practically inauspicious. Since then she has rehashed `When Harry Met Sally.' (one of my all time favorite comedies) AND `Sleepless In Seattle' (with 1998's `You've Got Mail' which was a rehash of `The Shop Around The Corner') and I've also noticed her comedy flair has gotten a nasty streak of meanness throughout. Her latest offering is a joint effort with her sister Delia (based on her autobiographical account of their colorful screenwriter father) that quite frankly is a mirthless, `dramedy' (a term I never wholeheartedly embraced; sounds freakish don't you think?) about three sisters approaching middle age and enough dysfunction for several sitcoms to trudge through.Eve, Georgia and Maddy (Ryan, Keaton - who directed this mess, and Kudrow, respectively) are the squabbling sisters who all seem attached by some sort of metaphorical umbilical cord (i.e. the phone) who are at constant odds with each other and themselves in midst of a family crisis: their randy, colorful alcoholic screenwriter father Lou (the film's saving grace Matthau, who gives a heartfelt turn in a too-true-to-life interpretation of a life fully lived) whose mental decline is only preceded by his physical one: he's slowly dying.But it seems that Eve, a professional party planner married with a son, is the only one who recognizes this in spite of her hectic pell mell existence and clumsiness (i.e. accident prone to a fault) she does the only reasonable alternative: she puts their dad in the hospital after an attempt in a nursing home that only offered disastrous results.Georgia is a power hungry magazine magnate busy putting her self-congratulatory 5th anniversary edition of her eponymous zine to bed while her ditzy younger sis Maddy is trying to maintain a role on a soap opera with middling results.The film suffers many things, largely a decent script with a peppering of listless one-liners that fall flat or the hackneyed long-in-the-tooth premise of a dying loved one's pleas for his children to love one another (a noble theme true but here it feels like pulling teeth with no ether!) The other sin in the golden rule of comedy is there is nothing likable about the `realistic' account of one family's attempt to deal with a crisis. All three sisters are sooo annoying and whining and ultimately uncaring that when they finally get together by the film's inevitable climax it feels contrived and completely unconvincing. Why should we care about any of these characters in the first place? They're all too wrapped up in their ME ME way of life that it's actually repulsive.Matthau, with his basset hound's face in the comedy visage of Mount Rushmore, delivers a fine professional turn and I hate to say this but the fact he has been facing some hard times with his health only adds another layer to his role that raises the film a half star just for his casting.There are so many unanswered questions I hope the three other stars may consider on their next feature film. For Ryan - who I absolutely adore except here she is given the thankless task of being the glue here - When are you going to do a comedy with your meant-to-be older sister/mother Goldie Hawn, who she seems to be channeling obviously in her one-too-many scenes with a behemoth St. Bernard (shades of `Seems Like Old Times'); for Keaton - who will forever be Annie Hall to me - When did you stop being funny? Perhaps the second `Father of the Bride' flick? And finally to Kudrow - who's always solidly funny - When oh when are you going to stretch again and do another character (i.e. `The Opposite of Sex' in which she was deliciously snippy) and not another variation of your classic airhead Phoebe from `Friends'? These unsolved mysteries are now at Robert Stack's disposal.