User Reviews

I saw "Saint Maybe" on the Hallmark Channel. I don't know what I was thinking. It's a wonderful cast, including Blythe Danner, Mary-Louise Parker, Edward Herrmann, and Thomas McCarthy. I haven't read the book by Anne Tyler, so I can't comment on the transfer from book to screen.

It's the story of a young man named Ian (McCarthy) whose brother Danny (Jeffrey Nordling) marries a flighty young woman named Lucy (Parker) very shortly after meeting her at his post office window, when she wants to mail a bowling ball. Lucy has two children by a previous marriage, and 7 months after marrying Danny, has a third. The baby is said to be premature, but Ian isn't buying it, and is pretty sure the child isn't the deliriously happy Danny's. Constantly called on to babysit, Ian grows more and more suspicious of his sister-in-law over time - she is constantly going out with her girlfriend Dot and coming home with jewelery, scarves, and new clothes, and she seems to need a sitter an awful lot.

One night, when his own date is ruined because Lucy doesn't come home as promised, Danny returns first and drives Ian home. Ian loses his temper and tells Danny all of his suspicions. His brother is very upset and, after dropping off Ian at home, crashes into a tree and dies. If that isn't bad enough, Lucy dies not long afterward of a sedative overdose. Now the question is, what to do with the three orphaned children. The elderly grandparents (Danner and Herrmann) do their best, but guilt-ridden Ian stumbles into a church one night and realizes that he has to make a decision.

I said I don't know what I was thinking because I became very absorbed in this story and cried through most of it, hating myself every step of the way for watching it. It's a very warm, sentimental story with some lovely scenes. It has Hallmark stamped all over it - it's perfect family entertainment about a man who, in looking for forgiveness, finds that he can't undo what happened, but he can create what happens now.

Very good, but have some tissues nearby. Get a bunch ready for an especially poignant scene with Edward Herrmann. Blast him. He's fabulous.

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM HONEST

In this film a 19 year old college student Ian gets roped into babysitting his brothers kids once again. He gets very mad that his sister in law promises to be home at a certain time and she isn't. This makes IAN very mad because he just missed an important date with his girlfriend who he hardly see's. They both go to desperate colleges. He was kind enough to babysit however he feels disrespected when his sister in law ruins his plans.

Once his brother comes home after work he see's that IAN is babysitting. Ian tells his brother things he believes about his wife including the fact that he thinks she is cheating on him. The two brothers have a minor fight and IAN'S brother ends up in an auto accident and dies.

A short time later Ian's sister in-laws overdoses and dies. Ian is racked with guilt now because he feels responsible for the deaths of both people. A short time later he drops out of school to become the guardian of his brothers children and step children.

I enjoyed this film. The ending was not what I expected because I did want something more elaborate.

The acting is fine in this and the pacing of the film is very solid. I really would not calls this "A Christmas Film" but it is about having faith. The message in this film I do support. Its about making amends and saving yourself in the process.

This movie started out so good and really had me hooked but then I got confused,then outright lost.The movie starts out about a very close family who've gathered at Christmas and the oldest brother has his girlfriend with him and proclaims they're getting married.The wife who already has two kids acts very spacey.Next scene the couple has had a baby but only been married 7 months which the younger brother tells anyone who'll listen that it's not his brother's baby.Where is all this going? The movie is about the younger brother(Ian) and how he ends up living his life after tragedy in the family but it takes it's time getting there.Ian tells his brother how his wife is cheating on him,that the baby's not his and how she is always getting babysitters during the day and coming home late,not to mention always having fancy clothes he didn't buy.The brother knows his wife has a problem but only sees the good in her. He drops Ian off after he finishes trashing his wife and so angry on the inside he crashes into a tree killing himself.The wife is unable to function or work and also commits suicide by taking pills.Ian the only one who knows why the two are dead thinks it's his fault since he finds out the wife's problem was that she was a kleptomaniac not cheating on her husband.Ian who was in college and had a steady girl keeps seeing the couple and after going into a storefront church and confessing what he's done dedicates his life to the kids.The family can't find any relatives and his parents are up in age so he drops out of college and raises the 3 kids and becomes a devout church member.I was very confused as to the era.It seemed to start in the 50's yet at the wife's grave a woman was in a very short mini skirt.The children grew to adulthood but yet Ian looked the same as he did in college except for one part where he looked older then back to young Ian.At the end he meets a woman but she seems to be in the 80's while everybody else seems to be in the early 70's.She comes into the movie out of nowhere the barely have 2 scenes together and he end up telling everyone he's marrying her as the kids are established in their lives.Oh yeah oldest girl has a doll when she's little that has a piece of paper she hides from everyone.The woman Ian marries is a house clutter remover and the doll ends up on top of the trash.He sees it pulls the paper out reads an address on it and ends up finding the kids real grandmother on their father's side.She has always hated the kids mother and her son is dead also from an accident.He realizes it was his destiny to raise the kids in a loving home as she didn't want them anyway. I give it 5/10 for touching my heart but the movie doesn't flow smoothly.

This film from Hallmark was made in 1998, but seems even more contemporary somehow. It is very well put together in terms of lighting, cinematography and costuming, as it jumps ahead in time several times during the narrative.

19 year old Ian suspects that his older brother's new wife is cheating due to a series of strange coincidences. One night during a confrontation with his brother, the brother drives off in a fit of anger, and accidentally crashes his car and dies. Less than a year later, the wife commits suicide (possibly accidentally) and leaves behind two 10-ish kids (a boy and a girl) and an infant girl.

In his grief, Ian essentially believe that his words led to both of their deaths. By chance he happens by a storefront church. At the end of service, he confesses his feelings about everything that has gone on in his life. The pastor convinces Ian that he should likely become the guardian of the children now, instead of his own parents (who are now grandparenting little ones). Ian ends up quitting college, breaks up with his girlfriend, and takes up a woodworking trade. The film then jumps ahead in time as Ian is fairly successful in his chosen trade, and the kids are all grown up. But some suspect that Ian has essentially abandoned his own life to make sure the kids are okay.

There are heavily sentimental parts to the movie that are hard to take in. Some of the dialogue is little stilted.

There are also faith-based components to the film, which may be seen as highly positive by many, or cloying by others.

First off, to set the initial (annoying) tone for me for the entire movie, Thomas McCarthy is a 31-year-old portraying an 18-year-old teenager ready for college, and never once is he convincing as a teen nor does he look the age. He is a better actor than this - if you get a chance and can find it, catch his portrayal as a mentally "slow" adult with the luminescent Candace Bergen in the movie Mary & Tim. (Look on YouTube.)

This Hallmark movie very obviously has its heart in the right place, but it is so cloyingly sweet and message heavy that I had to mute it in places in order to finish (stomach) it.

Sadly, I have never been a fan of Mary-Louise Parker either, but thankfully she doesn't finish out the movie. She is much more successful in her performance in Fried Green Tomatoes.

Additionally, the 2 youngsters who play her character's children are more natural actors as grade schoolers than the annoying actors who play their adult versions, especially the third one who was the baby early on.

Finally, Blythe Danner, as another reviewer noted, relayed the death of her character's daughter-in-law to her movie son with as much feeling, emotion and empathy as if she were reciting the names from a phone directory. The only actor who rang true for me was Jeffrey Nordling, and unfortunately his part was brief.

This movie was disappointing because of the exceptional and usually talented adult cast who could just not manage to pull it off nor elicit any emotion in me as I trudged through it. Even when the dog died.

And let us not forget: the Church of the Second Chance. Oh brother, if that telegraphs anything.

It's obvious that young Tom McCarthy gets far too drawn into the problems of his very troubled sister-in-law whom he believes is an adulteress but had other issues he didn't discover until the sudden deaths of both his brother and sister-in-law, leaving behind her children by a previous marriage and one that he thinks might not be his brother's.

Now with the issues of the children up in the air, McCarthy starts to regret his last conversation with his brother that lead to a quick life taking car crash and later her apparent suicide. His parents, Blythe Danner and Edward Herrman, aren't much help. In fact, Danner tells McCarthy about the sister-in-law's death like she was passing on neighborhood gossip. No feeling or anything, just cold.

I felt this film to be preachy and agenda driven, especially when McCarty visits a street mission which results in a very lengthy scene with a preacher and just extends his guilt. After a while it's tiresome and manipulative and overwrought, even with a good cast.