Paul Brickman's American remake of the inferior LA VIE CONTINUE is one of those kind of movies you stumble on by mistake. That's what made it even more enjoyable as I viewed on HBO. I have never heard of it, though the ensemble cast is energetic and full of famous faces of the present.
The story has the ability to be funny and honest even as it becomes slightly melancholy with both death and near-death experiences.
The performances, again, are great, especially Jessica Lange, because her character isn't a single mom who struggles hard to keep her family together. Things get so incredibly rough that she becomes uneasily passive, letting her oldest son sleep with an older woman (the wonderful Joan Cusack as a nurse living in the same building) and spending most of her unemployed days in bed.
Other good performances come from Charlie Simon, proving you can be charming and sexy even with male-pattern baldness and Kathy Bates playing a character completely different from her usual sweet and struggling woman typecast (and it isn't even due to a Stephen King novel!!).
It's strange how you can explain the story to a person and they take it as a depressing tale, while Brickman sprinkles so much hilarious moments in this feel-good-feel-bad-feel-good-again movie. Witness the great scene between Lange and her son played by Chris O'Donnell involving the use and authority of the S-word.
The story has the ability to be funny and honest even as it becomes slightly melancholy with both death and near-death experiences.
The performances, again, are great, especially Jessica Lange, because her character isn't a single mom who struggles hard to keep her family together. Things get so incredibly rough that she becomes uneasily passive, letting her oldest son sleep with an older woman (the wonderful Joan Cusack as a nurse living in the same building) and spending most of her unemployed days in bed.
Other good performances come from Charlie Simon, proving you can be charming and sexy even with male-pattern baldness and Kathy Bates playing a character completely different from her usual sweet and struggling woman typecast (and it isn't even due to a Stephen King novel!!).
It's strange how you can explain the story to a person and they take it as a depressing tale, while Brickman sprinkles so much hilarious moments in this feel-good-feel-bad-feel-good-again movie. Witness the great scene between Lange and her son played by Chris O'Donnell involving the use and authority of the S-word.