As Good As It Gets

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a by the numbers murder mystery courtesy of the Hallmark Channel. It stars Ally Sheedy as Jane, whose Aunt Gertrude was viciously murdered. Tom, played by Sean Patrick Flannery, plays her boyfriend and after a period of time, way before the film is half over, we find he is the prime suspect. Detective Jack Morris, played by rocker Meat Loaf, takes on what was a cold case. He is by far the best thing about this film, as he plays the role simply but with a quiet determination. He should do more acting, he is good at it. The film is nothing special but it is definitely watchable. Nia Peeples is kind of underutilized as Jane's best friend, but the movie is really about Jane and Jack anyway. If it replays and you like murder mysteries, its worth watching.

Excellent movie dealing with a young widow, practically engaged to a man she knew for 20 years. He is kind, quiet, respectful and ultimately quite diabolical.Poor Aunt Gertrude. She raised Jane and is soon murdered in a most vicious fashion. Who killed Aunt Gertrude?Believe it or not, we find this out after about 40 minutes into this engrossing film. Our nice quiet guy is anything but. Imagine, he killed the old woman so that he could live off the $1 million dollars that she left to her niece. What is most shocking is at the end when a policy reveals that he insured Jane, so he was going to kill her as well.Jane becomes relentless in trying to discover the killer and when that's quickly revealed, she works hard to find her boyfriend guilty in this dastardly crime. In the interim, he has stolen all her funds. She is literally forced to sell her home and live in poverty.There is a great performance by someone by the name of Meat Loaf, who plays a very intelligent detective who inherits the case. What kind of name is Meat Loaf? He is certainly no ham actor along with an excellent cast.

Citizen Jane is an exceptionally well acted film, including the supporting roles. Nia Peeples, for example, is unaffectedly charming as Jane's warm hearted, loyal girlfriend, and Frank Pesce is effective and frightening as Vergil, the wife-hitting handyman. But the three main characters, Jane Alexander (Ally Sheedy), Jack Morris (Meat Loaf Aday) and Tom O'Donnell (Sean Patrick Flanary) are the most interesting, not only because they are so well portrayed, but also because they are not static, and all three actors are very successful in showing us how their respective characters change during the course of the movie. One undergoes a gradual personal evolution; one dons a mask as a tool but drops it whenever it's not needed; and one finally drops his disguise involuntarily, exposing what lies beneath.Ally Sheedy's Jane Alexander is girlishly in love with Tom O'Donnell when the story begins. She has given him complete control of her finances, but her implicit trust speaks more to her need to avoid responsibility than to a relationship based upon mutual respect. When Jane, her head slightly lowered but her eyes looking up, says to Tom, "I love you so much!" Ally Sheedy shows us an insecure middle aged woman with the demeanor of a teenage girl. When her aunt is murdered, we see Jane's pain and anger, but this is followed by a period of ineffectual frustration. Her conflicted emotions are apparent when she tells Tom, "I can't go anywhere now!" with a tiny, defensive smile. Her turning point comes when Jack convinces her of Tom's guilt, and throughout the rest of the movie, we see Jane's growing self-reliance and determination to see justice served. Jane's success, as an ordinary citizen, in helping to put a murderer behind bars is inspiring. But the greater story here is what she gains while working toward this accomplishment, and what Ally Sheedy so skillfully portrays: Jane's personal transformation into a capable, confident, positively glowing woman.Meat Loaf Aday is Jack Morris, the detective whose professional style is summed up by his line, "Me talking' ain't the point." We learn that this doesn't necessarily mean that he rarely speaks, but rather that his whole aim in talking to a suspect is to elicit a response. Even when he wants to make an impression, such as his disarming friendliness in the lemonade scene, he does it in such a way as to redirect Jane and Tom's attention away from him and back to themselves. As the movie begins we know little of Jack's personality, except that he is a calm, unflappable man who speaks in soft, measured tones, but whose cool, intent gaze makes us feel that few details escape him. He could not be described as warm. But later, when Jack is sure that Jane is innocent, and shows up at her door saying "You got some coffee?" we understand that he has been wearing a mask, and has now taken it off, at least for Jane. Meat Loaf's performance is nicely nuanced; his Jack trades one set of subtleties for another, but from this point onward he is obviously sympathetic to Jane and as the story progresses, behaves more genuinely toward her. In a particularly touching scene he presses his lips together and affectionately squeezes Jane's arm in support, before going in to interrogate Tom. Contrast his natural warmth in this scene with the insinuating but chilly smile he shows Tom moments later, or his cold, knowing amusement earlier in the film, after reading aloud from the FBI profile. Meat Loaf expertly paints a portrait of a professional who can completely mask his own emotions in order to present a face of his own choosing to suspects.Sean Patrick Flanary plays Tom O'Donnell, who murders Jane's aunt in cold blood, planning to live with Jane off the proceeds of the estate, only giving up on this idea after Jack "stirs the pot" and spooks him, but entertaining it again briefly after Jane visits him in jail. Flanary has said in an interview on the Hallmark Channel website that he felt Tom compartmentalized his actions and actually believed what he did was right, for the greater good. Whether this is true or whether Tom O'Donnell was a psychopath fully aware of his own motives is moot; Sean Patrick Flanary's performance is believable either way; believable and also endlessly interesting, because we are constantly looking for clues to his personality. We're given few, however, until the very end of the movie, when Tom drops his mask suddenly, in a chilling and absolutely stunning display of previously hidden brutality.Citizen Jane is an absorbing movie with uplifting messages about justice, determination and perseverance, and these messages are all the more powerful for the story's basis in fact. It is also enjoyably suspenseful, but since the facts of this true story are known at the outset, the plot line itself cannot provide this type of interest; instead, the excellent acting, scripting, and well-developed characterization make the film riveting.-Kathy Borror, 16 September 2009

This movie, based upon real-life events, starts off slowly, with some lovely switches, as bad guys turn into good guys and good guys into bad. Interestingly enough, the only character that is more than sketched in by the end of the movie is that of the killer. Although all the performances are fine, particularly Meat Loaf as the investigating detective -- much to my surprise -- a story line that turns into a rather straightforward "How to Prove It" in the second half stops this from being more than a well-turned variant of a police procedural as executed by an amateur.In terms of construction, it is just as well that this has the advantage -- or perhaps excuse -- of being based on reality. The whole issue is fixed by a piece of last-minute evidence that is submitted in court: life, unlike fiction, need not, I suppose, obey rules.