Anywhere but Here

November. 12,1999      PG-13
Rating:
6.2
Trailer Synopsis Cast

Single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.

Susan Sarandon as  Adele August
Natalie Portman as  Ann August
Hart Bochner as  Josh Spritzer
Eileen Ryan as  Lillian
Ray Baker as  Ted
John Diehl as  Jimmy
Shawn Hatosy as  Benny
Bonnie Bedelia as  Carol
Faran Tahir as  Hisham Badir
Shishir Kurup as  Hisham Badir (voice)

Similar titles

Let Liv
Let Liv
A young alcoholic woman agrees to attend an AA meeting with her partner. When she unexpectedly runs into her estranged mother, she's forced to confront demons from her past.
Let Liv 2023
Are You Still There?
Are You Still There?
Safa’s been through a lot. Now her car battery's dead in a strip mall parking lot.
Are You Still There? 2021
Wild at Heart
Wild at Heart
After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune. Lula's mother, Marietta, desperate to keep them apart, hires a hitman to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru, an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.
Wild at Heart 1990
Strange Days
Max
Strange Days
Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.
Strange Days 1995
Beverly Hills Cop III
Paramount+
Beverly Hills Cop III
When his boss is killed, Detroit cop Alex Foley finds evidence that the murderer had ties to a California amusement park called Wonder World. Returning to sunny Beverly Hills once more, Foley reunites with Detective Billy Rosewood to solve the case. Along with Billy's new partner, Detective Jon Flint, they discover that Wonder World is being used as a front for a massive counterfeiting ring.
Beverly Hills Cop III 1994
Capote
Prime Video
Capote
A biopic of writer Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book "In Cold Blood".
Capote 2005
The Piano
Paramount+
The Piano
A mute Scottish woman arrives in colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Her husband refuses to move her beloved piano, giving it to neighbor George Baines, who agrees to return the piano in exchange for lessons. As desire swirls around the duo, the wilderness consumes the European enclave.
The Piano 1993
Lost Highway
Lost Highway
A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.
Lost Highway 1997

You May Also Like

Where the Heart Is
Where the Heart Is
Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.
Where the Heart Is 2000
Mindwarp
Prime Video
Mindwarp
Revolting mutants hunt human outcasts and underground fighters (Bruce Campbell, Marta Alicia) in a future world of mind control.
Mindwarp 1992
Instinct
Instinct
In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.
Instinct 1999
How to Steal a Million
How to Steal a Million
A woman must steal a statue from a Paris museum to help conceal her father's art forgeries.
How to Steal a Million 1966
Little Women
Prime Video
Little Women
With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, male friends start to become a part of the household.
Little Women 1994
The Wedding Singer
Prime Video
The Wedding Singer
Robbie, a local rock star turned wedding singer, is dumped on the day of his wedding. Meanwhile, waitress Julia finally sets a wedding date with her fiancée Glenn. When Julia and Robbie meet and hit it off, they find that things are more complicated than anybody thought.
The Wedding Singer 1998
The Other Boleyn Girl
Prime Video
The Other Boleyn Girl
A sumptuous and sensual tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in European history: two beautiful sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII.
The Other Boleyn Girl 2008
P.S. I Love You
Prime Video
P.S. I Love You
A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.
P.S. I Love You 2007
Closer
Prime Video
Closer
Two couples disintegrate when they begin destructive adulterous affairs with each other.
Closer 2004
Stepmom
Starz
Stepmom
Jackie is a divorced mother of two. Isabel is the career minded girlfriend of Jackie’s ex-husband Luke, forced into the role of unwelcome stepmother to their children. But when Jackie discovers she is ill, both women realise they must put aside their differences to find a common ground and celebrate life to the fullest, while they have the chance.
Stepmom 1998

Reviews

ChanBot
1999/11/12

i must have seen a different film!!

... more
Steineded
1999/11/13

How sad is this?

... more
Micransix
1999/11/14

Crappy film

... more
Roxie
1999/11/15

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

... more
Python Hyena
1999/11/16

Anywhere but Here (1999): Dir: Wayne Wang / Cast: Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Hart Bochner, Shawn Hatosy, Eileen Ryan: Undemanding tripe suggesting one's place in life, and hopefully that place isn't anywhere where this film can be seen. It is about a mother and daughter with different dreams and desires. Susan Sarandon packs up her daughter and moves to Beverly Hills California where she hopes to begin teaching and establish her daughter as an actress. Her daughter resents this and feels pressured. The premise isn't much and the conclusion leaves much to be desired but director Wayne Wang gives a detailed description of relationships that threaten to tear apart at the seams because the thread is too strong, much like the screenplay does, ever so rapidly. Story is sidetracked with unnecessary subplots such as the new man in Sarandon's life or the cousin back home that dies. Sarandon plays the mother who is seeking new direction and wishes not to travel it alone. Natalie Portman struggles to adjust to her mother's demands. Both actresses are far too talent for such predictable roles with little depth. Lame supporting roles by Hart Bochner and Shawn Hatosy that do little if anything to enhance this drivel. Themes regards trusting others and growth and responsibility but viewers will likely wish to be anywhere but here. Score: 4 / 10

... more
bballinchick_23
1999/11/17

This movie was a great one. Their relationship was a bit rocky, but in the end, Ann realized what greatness her mother really had. Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman were the right actresses for the job. :) They really portrayed a real "family". Not this fairy-tale "wish that was my family" kind of family. They were actually like today's families...with extreme relativity with the moving and mother-daughter struggles and diversity. I loved it...especially the ending when they realized how much both of them meant to each other. It made me wanna grab my mom!!! (who was sitting right beside me at the time...so i actually did...haha!)

... more
michaelsibley416
1999/11/18

"Anywhere But Here" is a movie that could have worked a lot better if the mother and daughter had stopped fighting with another earlier and developed more of friendship to give it a better lead up to the end.I must say the acting in "Anywhere But Here" was good from Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. After all, they couldn't help that the writer skipped a few important steps while writing the screenplay.I'm glad to have been witness to a movie that had a believable plot, which surrounded the struggles a mother and daughter go through. I think this was unique because it has been awhile since I've seen this type of plot on screen as long as I have gone to the movies.I would be hesitant to recommend this movie based on anything other than plot.

... more
Dennis Littrell
1999/11/19

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)The mother-daughter bond, especially with an only child, is one of the strongest human bonds there is. Some say it's stronger than husband and wife. It tends to be intense and it almost always develops into a situation where neither side has the clear upper hand because both are vulnerable.And they fight. Tooth and nail. And they love each other intensely. For the mother it is scary because everything is in the daughter and for the daughter, especially when the mother is divorced or single, as is the case here. For the daughter it can be a nightmare because the mother is the adult and has the power and is a total embarrassment. This is especially true when the mother is delusional or dysfunctional as is Adele August (Susan Sarandon).The story from Mona Simpson's novel is familiar in plot and theme although the details here are unique and especially well done. Adele's judgment is more than suspect and she's careless with other people's feelings, and she's shallow and dresses funny. And she isn't completely aware of, nor has she sufficient respect for the needs and wants of her daughter, Ann (Natalie Portman). She, the mother, wants to leave behind the small town, Midwestern existence and embrace Hollywood and all things glamorous. Ann would rather stay in Bay City, Wisconsin with her friends and family. Mom buys a Mercedes and forces Ann to go with her to make a new life in Beverly Hills.I thought Wayne Wang's direction was excellent. He used visual clues to introduce the scenes: shots of an still apartment, shots of part of a person, shots of the beach or the highway, etc., and then a focus on--almost always--Sarandon or Portman. And then at sometime, the camera backs away and we see the larger scene: the desert sand and scrub, the ocean and the sunrise, the other diners at the restaurant, the mourners at the funeral, the crossway over the freeway, and so on. The scene in which Adele is hiding under the covers from heartbreak, and Ann pulls them off, is shot from above because such an angle so beautifully reveals Adele's limbs pulled in close to her body as though in catatonia or in a return to the safety of the womb. Sometimes the sounds precede the shot as when Adele is in Bay City trying desperately to get in touch with the dentist in California who doesn't want her, and we hear her desperation before we see it in her face.I also liked the way the film was cut. As soon as the point of the scene was made, we moved on to another scene, which is again introduced visually with just the right kind of lighting, giving us a moment or two to imagine what transpired in-between. However the real strength of the film is in the brilliant work by Sarandon and Portman.Sarandon is deliberately annoying, flighty, self-delusive, and deeply vulnerable while Portman is powerful, sensitive, and one step ahead of us. Indeed Natalie Portman is one of the most gifted young talents in all of cinema. She absolutely commands the camera, and, as it stays on her face, she reveals to us a full set of emotions and responses, layered like things very deep. If she wants to she can become one of the great stars of the screen. She has the talent. I understand however that she is pursuing a career as a doctor. Whatever she does, one has the sense that she will do it very well.A couple of irreverent questions for director Wayne Wang:How did Ann's audition go? Did her projection of her mother's personality win her the part?And, what is it that the man does in bed only with a woman he feels special about? Inquiring minds want to know (rather than make stupid guesses).Anywhere But Here can be compared with some other dysfunctional mom and wise-beyond-her-years daughter films, for example, Mermaids (1990) with Cher and Winona Ryder, Postcards from the Edge (1990) with Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep, Mommie Dearest (1981) with Fay Dunaway and Diana Scarwid, Terms of Endearment (1983) with Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger, and some others I have forgotten.For the record I would rate these in this order:Terms of Endearment, Postcards from the Edge, Anywhere But Here, Mermaids, Mommie DearestHere at IMDb they are rated in the same order but with Anywhere But Here at the bottom. Too bad, but that allows me to say that this is very much an underrated film.See it for both Susan Sarandon, who is as good or even better than she ever was--and that is very good indeed--and for Natalie Portman, who is stunning, and as an actress, mature beyond her years.

... more