Best movie of this year hands down!

As Good As It Gets

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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

Between Strangers is a muted, introspective film about several women whose path in life has brought them face to face with emotional obstacles, and carefully explores them with depth and feeling, if admittedly not completely following through on each arc satisfyingly. Sophia Loren (yes, she's still alive!) plays an aging woman who believes in a psychic link between herself and a girl half across the country who she believes to be her long lost daughter. Her abrasive husband (Pete Postlethwaite uses his usual genius to make complex work of a thankless role) thinks she's bonkers. An aspiring journalist (Mira Sorvino continues to prove how criminally underrated she is) suffers a crippling crisis of conscience when her peppy father (Klaus Maria Brandeur) brings her a job that is beyond morally questionable. Finally, in the film's most stirring vignette, a lost, broken woman attempts to confront her estranged father, who killed her mother in a drunken rage decades earlier. Vancouver actress Deborah Kara Unger, who makes a point to daringly seek out roles that most would steer well clear of, is plain heartbreaking, a cello musician who's ultimate chorus is the searing lament and rage towards the hand she has been dealt. Malcolm McDowell is utterly compelling as the father, a man so annihilated by his own actions he can barely stand to be inside his own skin. Their story culminates in a quietly devastating face to face interaction that sets the screen ablaze with cold fire, a sequence both performers should be immensely proud of. The film has its uneven moments, and while neither of the segments has much to do with each other story-wise, they tie nicely together in the sense that here are three women who take a bold, bravely realized look at their own lives, and step off the beaten track of what's expected of them, and even what they've come to expect from themselves, emblazoning important themes of both female independence and reawakening.

BETWEEN STRANGERS is a tough story told with unrelieved intensity, acted with underplayed angst, and directed with quiet strength by Eduardo Ponti. The "Strangers" are three unrelated women, each of whom has a burden that grows until it must be lifted.Mira Sorvino is a media photographer, daughter of Klaus Maria Brandauer (who has multiple awards for his own news photography, who has just had one of her images appear on TIME magazine - an image of a little girl from Angola who we gradually learn died in the fire Mira was photographing. She is haunted by the fact that the time she spent photographing the child could have been used to save the child's life.Deborah Unger is a concert cellist whose wife-abusing father (Malcolm McDowell) is released from prison despite her conviction that he should die for his cruelty, forcing her to leave her own family in the attempt to end her father's existence.Sophia Loren is a haggard housewife who has devoted her sad life to caring for her wheelchair-bound past athlete husband (Pete Postlethwaite) until she sees her illegitimate daughter she was forced to abandon becoming the sculptor artist she herself always wanted to be. Each of these women have visions of the same small girl at moments when they are forced to confront their pain and each finds a way back to salvation through 'living out a dream'.Some may find the story saccharine, but the actors deliver these sad folk in such an honest way that together they manage to capture our hearts. It is a true pleasure to see Sophia Loren act again and even the makeup she dons for her dowdy role cannot hide the fact that she remains one of the most beautiful women the screen has known - and one of the best actresses. All cast members are superb. Just be aware of the fact that this is a bleak story that requires much from the viewer. The rewards are worth it.

Everything about this movie was perfect - the three lead characters were played with such depth and restraint! Although I have never been in the position of any of these women (luckily), I feel like I could relate to their emotions, their ambivalence, their sadness and their ultimate strength. If ever there was a movie that showed the power of living through adversity, this is it! Gerard Depardieu was lovely as an intuitive friend - he was in it just a little, but his presence always moved the movie forward. Sophia Loren's husband was a perfectly human foil - both had shattered dreams and took two different paths in dealing with it, but both paths were completely understandable. Although his character could have been horribly despicable (and, boy!, some of his dialog was shockingly mean), he didn't seem like a monster. Not even the hoodlums were one-dimensional. Miro Sorvino took my breath away, Deborah Unger's restraint was outstanding and Sophia Loren - well, her best role, ever. This is a movie for the down-hearted, for those at impossible crossroads, and for those who like hopeful - not happy - endings.

The elements of Between Strangers are impressive. Against the background of a Toronto made beautiful by selectivity, a cast of skilled actors work to fulfil the writer's deep material. The film keeps one's attention thanks to the actors' sensitive work. The director's interweaving of the subplots is often moving, sometimes clumsy. The film also puzzles us with the inexplicable behaviours of some of the characters, and the understatement of some themes that beg for deeper exploration. Nevertheless, a praiseworthy effort. 6.5/10.