As Good As It Gets

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This one is in my celluloid firmament. I've been returning to it for over fifty years. I still think it is one of the most rewarding film experiences a person can have. With very little encouragement I could call it John Ford's best/greatest film/work of art. With a little bit more of very little encouragement I could call it the greatest american movie ever made. Exquisite moments and performances.

In rural Oklahoma, Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) is walking and hitchhiking home from prison, after a stay of four years. After taking a knife at a dance, Tom hit the attacker with a pan, killing him. Nevermind that it was self-defense, Tom still gets sent to prison. He hasn't heard from his parents, Ma (Jane Darwell) or Pa because they aren't the "writing types". A fierce dust storm makes Tom's final few steps treacherous. Arriving back at their small cabin, where his family are sharecroppers, Tom and his passing friend, Casy (John Carradine) are startled to find no one at home. A shell-shocked neighbor informs the other two that the family has been kicked off their land in foreclosure. They are nearby at Uncle John's house, where his family is about to suffer the same fate. Its the Depression and the Dust Bowl has ruined the land, taking off the top soil; no one can grow crops. When Tom catches up with his Ma and company, they are overjoyed to see him, for their plans are to pack a truck and move to California, where handbills show pickers are needed. Grandpa doesn't want to leave the only home he has ever known, so they drug him with medicine and haul him along. Now on the Mother Road, route 66, the journey is difficult; the truck breaks down frequently, no one wants them to stay long anywhere they rest, and Grandpa dies of a stroke. Will California really be the Golden, Promised Land? NOT ON YOUR LIFE! This heartbreaking adaptation of Steinbeck's classic is a must-see for the whole wide world. This family of hard-working folks has one calamity after another, just trying to earn an honest and living wage. Those who lived in the Dust Bowl part of the country were hit especially hard, as the soil had been overworked and winds took the topsoil off, creating damaging storms to crops, humans, and animals. No better were the "lies" of the handbills, advertisements that migrants were needed in California, where over 300,000 poor helpless folks showed up for very few jobs. The cast, with Fonda at the helm, is wonderful as is the scenery, costumes, and careful direction to show the truth of a desperate situation. Wanna get down on your knees and thank the Lord for what you have, Americans? You will when you view this amazing film!

Arguably Director John Ford's Greatest Film, although some might say "The Searchers" (1956) or "My Darling Clementine" (1946).But there is No Doubt that this Film Resonates and Captivates with its Story of the Depression's Devastating Effect on a "Salt of the Earth" Sharecropper Family with Multi-Generational Roots Planted in the Now Fallow "Dust Bowl".Along with the Personal Hardships the Movie makes much of the Social Separation and Income Inequality of the Time.There are the Compassion-Less Bankers and Their Minions of Law Enforcement and "Tin Badge" Thugs. Socialism/Communism was seen as an Alternative to the Punishing Poverty and Vanishing Opportunities by some and a Threat to Capitalism by the Capitalists.This is a Solid Background to the Story but Not the Backbone. The Skeletal Structure of the Movie, from John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel, is the Joad Family.Impeccably Acted by Henry Fonda (Tom Joad), Ma (Jane Darwell), and X-Preacher Casey (John Carradine), with Support from Charlie Grapewin (Grandpa), and John Qualen (Muley). The Remainder of the Strong Ensemble of Acting all do Excellent Work and the overall Verisimilitude of the Film is Striking.Gregg Toland's Haunting and Beautiful Cinematography Captures the Mood of Melancholy and the Film as a Whole is Widely Considered one of the Great Films.Some Film-Scholars even Rank it "The Greatest". This of course is Obviously Objective, but suffice to say it is always a Contender when the Category of "Best" or "Greatest" arises. This is a Futile Exercise, but Fun.Powerful, Unforgettable, and Ultimately a Cinematic Experience so Profound with its Realistic Dramatics that the Viewer is Likely to Feel attached to the Story and can Claim to have a "Little Piece" of a Big Picture.

John Ford won the second of his record four Best Director Academy Awards for this Depression era drama from John Steinbeck's novel about the Joads, and other families of Oklahoma sharecroppers whose decades old farms were destroyed by the Dust Bowl, their migration west (in an overloaded jalopy-truck) to California, a place purported to be "the land of milk and honey", and their disillusionment about the American dream.Jane Darwell won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (on her only nomination) for her role as Ma Joad, the family matriarch whose last words are perhaps the film's most optimistic. Henry Fonda received his first nomination (Best Actor) as Tom Joad (voted AFI's #12 hero, even though his character is an ex-con that struggles to stay out of trouble during much of the story).Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, the film was nominated for Best Picture, so was its Editing (Robert L. Simpson's only Academy recognition), Sound, and associate producer Nunnally Johnson's screenplay. It appears at #21 on AFI's Greatest Movies list, #7 on AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies list, and was added to the National Film Registry in 1989.The cast is chock full of recognizable character actors whose performances – along with Gregg Toland's dark cinematography – help to convey the squalid conditions of the situation and bleak outlook of the time. John Carradine plays the former preacher Casy, who makes the journey with the Joads. Charley Grapewin plays Grandpa, whose depression about his reality contributes to his failing health, while Russell Simpson plays his son and Fonda's Pa Joad.John Qualen gives the best of his prolific career as Muley, whose driven crazy by losing the land he and his family had tended for 70 years. Others in the credited cast are Dorris Bowdon, O.Z. Whitehead, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury, Frank Sully, Frank Darien, child actor Darryl Hickman, Grant Mitchell as the caretaker of a most unusual (almost commune-like) Department of Agriculture facility, Ford company regular Ward Bond as a policeman, Selmer Jackson, Charles Middleton, Paul Guilfoyle as an agitator, Cliff Clark, Joe Sawyer, Frank Faylen, and Irving Bacon.