Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sarah (Amber Tamblyn) left her small town in the Missouri area to live in Chicago. When she was barely out of high school, a tragedy occurred, something Sarah feels was her fault. Her former boyfriend, Evan (Paul Wesley) was heartbroken about the young lady's exit from his life and he moved to Texas, where he became a successful money manager. Although Sarah stays in touch with her parents and younger brother, she remains remote from all who love her for five years. Now, bad news arrives. Sarah learns that she is seriously ill, though doctors tell her she has a chance of recovery. Unhappily, Sarah thinks her sickness is the result of "karma", a tit-for-tat for the accident that happened half a decade ago. So, Sarah heads back to her hometown. Her parents welcome her, but don't give her an opportunity to convey her secret, as they are always rushing here and there. A neighbor woman, Lorraine (Jennifer Ehle) is upset beyond tears, for the tragedy struck her family. No one, not her caring husband or her two teenage sons can help her out of a lingering grief. With Sarah's return, she is shaken to the core. What will be the end result? Meanwhile, Sarah finds that Evan has returned, also, to care for his ailing, widower father. Before long, sparks are flying between them, something Sarah tries to repress since she doesn't know if she will beat her illness. With all of these serious life events unfolding, will there be a way to go beyond the singular happening that changed everyone's lives? This is quite a sensitive film, tackling many deep issues but it is hardly a happy Hallmark movie. Tears will probably fall for all who choose to watch it. The cast is great, with Tamblyn, Ehle, Mary Elizabeth Mastriantonio, Wesley and all of the others doing a great job. The setting is likewise wonderful, a beautiful, well-preserved small city with lovely surroundings. Though the plot unfolds slowly and is told with the aid of flashbacks, it still has a huge amount of courage in its presentation. Therefore, although it is part of the Hallmark collection, its not for all viewers. But, its exploration of tragedy, lingering grief, misplaced blame, guilt and other serious issues makes it a cathartic blessing for some. Act accordingly.

As the movie opens in Chicago, we see the "Russell girl" Amber Tamblyn as Sarah Russell, college graduate who aspires to medical school but has not been accepted yet and is working in Chicago in retail. But we also see her going to a clinic to get what turns out to be some bad news, she is sick with a form of leukemia. So she travels home to Staunton, Illinois, to "burn off" some of her vacation. But her real reason was the illness, and she wasn't sure how she would handle or even tell her family.Across the street lives Jennifer Ehle as Lorainne Morrisey, with her family which includes two teen-age sons. We find out there had been a tragedy about 6 years earlier, Lorainne lost her young daughter and had never gotten over it.The movie has two main stories, how Sarah deals with her illness, and her old boyfriend whom she wants to be with, but doesn't want to burden him with her problems. The other is how Lorainne can get over her loss and live life again. Not a great movie, but a good enough one.SPOILERS: Sarah had been involved in the tragedy, she was the babysitter, trying to quell a fight between the two sons when the daughter fell down the stairs into the basement, and dying from her injuries. Lorainne had never forgiven Sarah, and was mean to her when she saw her. She was also angry at her husband for not fixing the basement door to prevent what happened. But finally we learn that Lorianne had bought the wrong screws, that is why the door was not fixed. The tragedy was really no one's fault, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sarah eventually told her parents and friends, and was also accepted into medical school, but as the movie ends she is focusing on her treatment.

While one should not expect an Emmy award winner out of the movies Hallmark typically puts out, "The Russell Girl" was OK entertainment for two hours. I appreciated the lack of long commercial breaks. It was difficult to say if the lead actress, Tamblyn, made the movie slow down in parts or if it was just the script itself. It did seem to drag out as she kept playing a "keep-away" game of her secret from her family.Even though she was relatively young (early 20's) she had not resolved a major event that had happened five years ago, one she ran away from. This movie did fairly well in showing the results of not forgiving as well as the ineffectiveness of running away from a bad situation. It just seemed to take awhile to get to the ending that wasn't a surprise but was nice to see anyhow.The strength of the movie came in giving the audience a chance to examine their own lives, if given the news of having an "aggressive cancer". Would we accept it as some sort of karma for the bad things we have done? Would we try to right past wrongs? How would we spend the little time we have left? Considering the junk that passes for entertainment on TV lately (watching someone strapped to a lie detector for an hour?), I did not have any regrets using up two hours of my life on this movie.(A better Hallmark movie on forgiveness is "The Christmas Gift" with Neal Patrick Harris.)

Although the story is quite interesting, for me it was too similar and predictable; especially towards the end. This movie is just like Candles on Bay Street because for one thing, the main characters are females with cancer; the only difference is that one died and the other lived. I wasn't too keen on the performances though Amber Tamblyn does a fairly nice job than Alicia Silverstone. Aside from that, there's really nothing special about this film. It's just something that's better suited for an episode in a TV drama, nothing more or less. Hallmark has done some good movies, but the end result for this one is simply "meh" at best. Overall, this film is better watched just to pass the time.