One of my all time favorites.

hyped garbage

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

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.

I am watching this film at the moment on channel 61, At the point where Sally and John have the row about her leaving and not telling him, the actor changes and so does his clothes! Suddenly a much younger man is in place of John wearing a white cable knit sweater. This happens three times and then Sally becomes a younger version of herself, different hairstyle, makeup and clothes! I am puzzled as to how this film, that has received such great reviews and nominations for the acting, can be so badly edited. I have found this so distracting I had to break away and look the film up to see if anyone else has noticed this.Otherwise, it is a good film but I am being penickity perhaps.

I actually enjoyed this movie's portrayal of life with a severely autistic child. I loved the mom's mouthy way of dealing with her life and her reality. I could easily relate to her life and the way she was handling things. I could also understand her amazement at finding that her son could do more than she thought he could.But having the movie end with her putting her child into an institution and walking out the door.... and her final speech to her son where she tells him that she has been holding him back... that spoiled it for me a bit.This movie's very unfortunate message seems to be that it is the mother's fault that her child is autistic and the best thing for autistic children is to go live in an institution and the best thing for moms of autistic children is to put their children in an institution and get out and have a life. There is also a point made that moms who don't want to put their children into an institution are just using their kids to make themselves feel special.I believe that this movie is a very good representation of 1994. Kirstie Alley did a fantastic job of conveying the complex emotions involved in raising a child who simultaneously needs her desperately and barely acknowledges her existence.The speech that she gave when her husband was leaving her was exactly right. We do what we have to do no matter how hard it is to do. And the unfortunate truth is that most fathers of special needs kids do leave. They can't handle it and they give up, leaving it all to the mother to handle on her own. And by the time some actually nice man comes along who wants to accept and help and be part of the family the mother is so worn out she cannot feel anything except what must be done. The complex combination of hope and despair was beautifully portrayed here.I would love to see this movie made again with the same cast but with a different ending. I would like to see the mom find a school that was during the day only to take care of and teach her son and then she could have her days free to pursue her own interests. She could see her son's progress and learn how to help him learn life skills at home. As she begins to relax and have more hope and less despair on a daily basis she becomes able to reconnect with her own self again.Of course I love Kirstie Alley, Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston so much I would watch those three do just about anything. It was such a treat to see all three of them together and doing a show about a subject so close to my heart.

I must confess to a partiality for this type of film and did enjoy this one. However, I found it too much on the negative side and with a too low feelgood factor. I thought that David's "performance" was excellent and extremely realistic ( I am assuming the actor concerned is not autistic in real life ) but I thought that David's mother, as personnified by Kirstie Alley, went a bit over the top. Of course, the situation is difficult to live but one cannot even detect a glimmer of hope in Alley's attitude towards John who was an extremely kind and understanding man and willing to tackle the problem of David. All the mother can do is tell him to get lost ! - it's pushing the negative dramatic element too far in the direction of pessimism. Of course it must be very difficult to bring up a child like David, but one would have thought that John's presence would change things for the better. One saw this very briefly with David learning to operate the VCR but the optimism stops there.It's all well and good trying to be acutely realistic and doubtless this film corresponds perfectly to real live situations which have been lived. But I think that Cinema is there to make us dream, albeit only a little in some cases, and the viewer needs some "positive elements" to enable him/her to feel good about watching the film. After all, it IS a film and not a real-life documentary. Basically, one is left with a bitter aftertaste in one's mouth because of Kirstie Alley's boorish, offhand and uncompromising attitude with all those around her. One would have expected this attitude of course to dominate initially but to gradually disappear as the story unfolds throughout the film. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case and whilst there is a minimum of gratitude on the part of Alley towards the John element, one feels that deep down she has not really changed that much and intends to continue as before. Big deal !So, all in all, good acting ( beautiful actors, John is very handsome and Kirstie Alley, when properly dressed up is pretty sexy ( for me, at least !! ), but an overly negative storyline which could have been improved upon without going too much in the other direction !

Although Kirstie Alley is normally a very good actress, in THIS particular production, I found her to be rude, obnoxious, and a down-right SLOB. She is so bitter that she relies on sarcasm to get her through life. Her son is Autistic, she's a Pig....how's that for a summary? Her sister (portrayed by the ALWAYS-wonderful Stockard Channing) decides it's time for Kirstie Alley's character to meet a man. This is depsite the fact that her home is a pig-sty and she looks like a bag lady... She is introduced to a character named John Nils, portrayed by the EVEN MORE ALWAYS WONDERFUL Sam Waterston. He is sweet, gentle, kind, and bloody beautiful. He tries his heart out to help her change her attitude towards her handicapped child, and give him a chance to get some treatment, as well as enter a program for children with Autism. Of course this enrages Ms. Alley's character. However, after bedding down with Mr. Nils (Mr. Waterston looks divine in a black velour bathrobe), she realizes he's right about her kid - but wrong for her....naaaah. She doesn't love him enough to stay with him. And she decides to tell him this in his store. What a TERRIFIC CHICK this is...of course, he loves HER, so you can see the pain in his eyes when she tells him, for all intents and purposes, that it's over between them... In my personal opinion, I was kinda hoping they'd commit HER along with her poor son. She was simply boorish, and of course wasn't helping the poor boy anyway. I came away from this with a "yecch" expression. If you're going to put someone opposite the ever kind/generous/loving/extremely talented Sam Waterston, let it NOT be Kirstie Alley. If only they'd allowed Stockard Channing to play the part, the whole movie would've had much more class to it..