2000 movie written and directed by Rodrigo García, featuring quite an impressive cast:
Glenn Close proves that she just keeps getting better and better.
Kathy Baker makes you wonder why on earth she isn't getting Great Big Parts all over the place.
Holly Hunter is hard as nails and alltogether touching as the miserable mistress of a rather sleazy Gregory Hines.
Calista Flockhart is quite un-Ally-like as the lesbian lover of
a dying Valerie Golino
and Amy Brenneman is far from Judging Amy-land and managing quite well as the self-sacrificing sister of
Cameron Diaz, who features in the most un-goofy and intelligent role I've seen her in to date.
The movie consists of several, loosely connected stories or segments. I will avoid telling much of them, as that is too likely to end up as spoilers, but my favorite is undoubtedly the segment "Someone for Rose", the story of a children's book writer, played by Kathy Baker, who gets a new neighbour, played by Danny Woodburn. An unusual and touching love story.
What binds the movie together, besides the fact that some characters appears in several segments, is really in the title of the movie. Most of the performances in this movie are so strong, it is really about watching their faces and gestures, more than listening to their words. Close, Baker and Hunter are marvellous, and even Diaz does a more than decent job giving life to her blind character.
I talked my mother and a friend into watching this movie with me when I'd already seen it once, trying to argue that it wasn't too much of a chick flick. Turned out, my mother liked it, but made it clear that if this wasn't a chick flick, she had never seen one. So yes, ok, it is, but it's much less of a sob-job than Steel Magnolias, and it has some incredible performances and not a half bad script going for it. You have to be able to stand a movie that goes on for 109 minutes without too much stuff blowing up or racing around, though.
Couldn't get by without: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0210358