Irresistible
April. 18,2006 RA wife and mother is consumed by the thought that her husband's co-worker is trying to win him away from her and their family.
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One of my all time favorites.
A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
There are two things that will be clear to you after watching this film.1. Writer/Director Ann Turner can't recognize a good story when it's staring her in the face.2. Susan Sarandon has a tremendous rack.Sophie (Susan Sarandon) is an American expatriate who was brought to Australia by her father when she was just a teenager. Now fully into her middle ages, Sophie is an artist and book illustrator. She's married to Craig (Sam Neill), a successful architect, and has two lovely young daughters named Elly (Joanna Hunt-Prokhovnik) and Ruby (Lauren Mikkor). Sophie's mother recently passed away and she's also struggling with a new project, drawing a memory of sorrow and pain from her past for a new book featuring the work of many artists. Already emotionally unsettled, Sophie notices things going missing and other strange things happening in her home. Eventually, she begins to suspect that Mara (Emily Blunt), the new IT person at Craig's office, is breaking into her home and playing some sort of sinister game with Sophie's family. Now, you may think an IT person who looks like Emily Blunt is more unrealistic than a flying car named Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but that's not the silliest thing you'll see in this film.As Sophie becomes more and more paranoid, she starts following Mara around. She even sneaks into Mara's home and gets caught. That leads to a restraining order against Sophie as even her husband thinks she's losing her marbles. Sophie's behavior becomes more erratic and more extreme, until she's only allowed to have supervised visits with Ruby and Elly. T hen there's a scene where Sophie's dark and painful memory is revealed and that's when the movie gets a lobotomy. After that scene, there's no more mystery or suspense of tension in the story. You know exactly what's going to happen and how the movie is going to end (Hint, Mara is playing a sinister game). There's a fight in a basement that's straight out of Melrose Place. There's a climax that makes no sense, a heartfelt reunion after that which actually makes negative sense and then a twist ending that is laughably stupid.It's too bad this film finishes so poorly, because the first half of it or so verges on being genuinely engrossing. When the story really seems to be about a woman who is emotionally breaking down, haunted by something from her past and losing her grip under the stress of remembering it, Irresistible is fairly good. As Sophie starts to unravel, Sarandon gives us a feminine version of what Michael Douglas did in Falling Down. She shows us a normal woman slowly crumbling under pressure. And if all of her fears and suspicions had turned out to just be in Sophie's head, this might have turned out to be a very good movie. Instead it degenerates into a below average, "woman in peril" Lifetime flick. If Mara's sinister game had just been a figment of Sophie's imagination, then none of Sophie's paranoid observations need to make any sense. But when those suspicions are confirmed, you can't help but recognize that a bunch of stuff that happens in the story is impossible and/or ridiculous.Even as the film heads south, though, Sarandon's bosom remains spectacular. I t may remain covered for the entire movie, but there are still some scenes where her breasts almost qualify as supporting characters. This may be the best performance by clothed boobs in cinematic history. They are that damn impressive.Irresistible is more frustrating than your run of the mill bad movie. It teases you for quite a while with the suggestion you're going to watch something worthwhile, and then smashes those hopes like a hot girl crushing a nerd's dreams on prom night. If Sarandon had actually unleashed her blouse puppies, that might have been forgivable. She didn't, though, so it's not.
I just plain don't get the ending. I wish someone would write a spoiler and let us confused people know what you think. I watched the first 40 and the last 40 minutes of the movie and listened to the rest. I was so unhappy I didn't pay better attention now I am going out of my mind trying to figure it out. However, it was interesting enough to watch on TV. I disagree with it not being worth the time because it had its moments that pulled you back in.Like the party scene. I thought Mara was hitting on Susan and was going to use that to break up the marriage. But, I was wrong.This movie get an eight because I will watch anything with Susan Sarandon in it. Sam Neill is a favorite from long ago but his character was kind of not dynamic. I also thought the children were under-developed. The best character was the older lady who was the neighbor. She kept things together in the movie.
The other reviewer who bemoaned the inability to vote -0- was being kind. I wish there were negative numbers. I can't say enough unkind things about this movie and its bovine star. Sam Neill is attractive enough but miscast and then some. Emily Blount is very pretty. Susan Sarandown (pun intended) is not very pretty and, as usual, beyond boring to watch unless you are a guy hoping for a peek at the famous rack but at this point, age has not burnished her always limited charm and the rack has probably been enhanced rather than permitted to move south with the rest of her "charms." I admit that, after the first few benighted minutes, the reason I watched was to see if it could get worse and it did. I watched the rest only to be able to review because I think one should not review any movie without watching it. In any event, the best advice that I can offer is AVOID this mess and be very careful that you don't accidentally step in it.
I liked this movie for several reasons; it's got its flaws, but it's also got some redeeming qualities. The premise is good. The plot unwinds in enough fits and starts to actually seem as if some of this could be happening---it keeps the viewer uncertain as to where it's going. It also fails to adequately provide the interstices where something has happened, it's not well explained how it happened, and we are asked to accept that it has been a natural progression. This unfortunately fails to win the viewers' affection. An example of this is where the children are suddenly withdrawn and in fear of Sarandon's mother character --- yet nothing in the script has fully prepared us to believe that the parental bonds have suffered that greatly especially when the relationship previously has been shown strong. What the filmmakers are trying to do is obvious: they want to unsettle the audience, to get them out of familiar territory, and stretching the normal boundaries in relationship, in time, in space is an effective way of doing this. It just has to be done with a little more credibility and all would be fine. I suspect that some of the seams are showing as result of editing and failing to include continuity for proper pacing. We see the breakdown of the protagonist---we are not sure if her delusions are causing, or caused by events. What we don't get is the flow from certitude to shaken state, leaving us not sure whether we're buying into it or not. There are also a few incidents that could have been altered to be a little less far-fetched---(floor grate scene). Overall I did like the movie, I just felt it needed some polishing. O'Neil's role is one of the loving husband and protective father . . . somewhere he is also simply a man, and it doesn't feel right when he's going through a seduction. I found it unreasonable: his character had too much to lose, and too much was hinted at as to why he would fall for this but not detail enough, again, to allow me to believe that he would maritally stray. As mysteries go, this one is only needing some editorial work, and a bit of scriptural add-in to be a much better movie. Still, I liked it, and I liked the final Du Maurier-esquire twist. That I did like.