My wife and I saw and enjoyed this movie via Amazon Prime streaming movies.
As the author explains it is based on a real person in her life, although the name is changed and that person did in fact die some years ago. Some of the events and ages are changed for purposes of making the movie flow better but the core of it is the devotion and friendship that the relationship represented.
Here Eddie Murphy is "Mr. Church", Henry Church who was hired by a wealthy man, to go daily to his ex-lover's home to cook for her and her 10-yr-old daughter, and perhaps do other appropriate things. The lady, Natascha McElhone as Marie, had breast cancer and was only given 6 months to live. The 6- month plan turned into an almost 20-year relationship starting in 1971.
Mr. Church remained a mystery to others, he would show up each morning and would cook marvelous meals. He also was an artist and a musician, a piano player. He was always proper and spoke kindly, but had a nasty cigarette habit. In the evening he would walk away, never wanting to discuss where he lived or what he did on his own time.
Marie had a young daughter of 10 when Mr. Church showed up, and that character, Charlie, is based on the author herself. Charlie grew up and was played by Britt Robertson as a teenager in high school, a young college student, then a young single mother.
The acting is uniformly good, and I especially like Eddie Murphy. While most know him for his comedy he is even better, in my mind, in dramatic roles. He is a marvelous Mr. Church. Good movie.
SPOILERS: In real life the mother did not die from the cancer, she is in fact still alive. Mr. Church did contract lung cancer and died after Charlie came back to L.A. from college in Boston, pregnant with her soon to be born daughter. But the role Mr. Church played essentially was the only father that Charlie ever knew and clearly had a positive effect on her life and career. The end of the movie shows her activating her typewriter and writing a story called "Mr. Church."
As the author explains it is based on a real person in her life, although the name is changed and that person did in fact die some years ago. Some of the events and ages are changed for purposes of making the movie flow better but the core of it is the devotion and friendship that the relationship represented.
Here Eddie Murphy is "Mr. Church", Henry Church who was hired by a wealthy man, to go daily to his ex-lover's home to cook for her and her 10-yr-old daughter, and perhaps do other appropriate things. The lady, Natascha McElhone as Marie, had breast cancer and was only given 6 months to live. The 6- month plan turned into an almost 20-year relationship starting in 1971.
Mr. Church remained a mystery to others, he would show up each morning and would cook marvelous meals. He also was an artist and a musician, a piano player. He was always proper and spoke kindly, but had a nasty cigarette habit. In the evening he would walk away, never wanting to discuss where he lived or what he did on his own time.
Marie had a young daughter of 10 when Mr. Church showed up, and that character, Charlie, is based on the author herself. Charlie grew up and was played by Britt Robertson as a teenager in high school, a young college student, then a young single mother.
The acting is uniformly good, and I especially like Eddie Murphy. While most know him for his comedy he is even better, in my mind, in dramatic roles. He is a marvelous Mr. Church. Good movie.
SPOILERS: In real life the mother did not die from the cancer, she is in fact still alive. Mr. Church did contract lung cancer and died after Charlie came back to L.A. from college in Boston, pregnant with her soon to be born daughter. But the role Mr. Church played essentially was the only father that Charlie ever knew and clearly had a positive effect on her life and career. The end of the movie shows her activating her typewriter and writing a story called "Mr. Church."