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Harrison's Flowers (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:84
Fresh:41
Rotten:43
Average Rating:5.6/10
Consensus: Though it presents the war in shockingly gritty, realistic terms, Harrison's Flowers uses such scenes as background for a trite love story.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Andie MacDowell is phenomenal as Sarah Lloyd, a devoted wife and mother who goes to former Yugoslavia to find her husband Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn) when he disappears and is assumed dead.... Andie MacDowell is phenomenal as Sarah Lloyd, a devoted wife and mother who goes to former Yugoslavia to find her husband Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn) when he disappears and is assumed dead. Sarah and Harrison share a deep love and understanding, but Harrison, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo journalist, is frequently away on business and the family is starting to suffer. He takes an assignment in the former Yugoslavia, promising Sarah he'll be back for their son's birthday, but he never returns. Knowing in her gut that he's alive, Sarah journeys to find him and discovers the insanity and horror of war. The strength of HARRISON'S FLOWERS lies in its nuanced performances and strong cinematography. Andie MacDowell is alternately gentle, irrational, compassionate, and fierce and her eyes reflect a quiet intensity that's mesmerizing. Adrien Brody's depiction of Kyle, a cynical, drug-addicted photo journalist, is maddening and engaging. His transformation from a bitter, self-centered, wannabe hot shot photographer into Sarah's loyal friend is heartbreaking. The battle scenes are brutal and shocking and reveal the kinds of risks that journalists take when they aggressively pursue a story. Nicola Pecorini's filming captures the finest details as if every moment were a fleeting memory. [More]
Starring: Andie MacDowell, Elias Koteas, Gerard Butler, Adrien Brody
Starring: Andie MacDowell, Elias Koteas, Gerard Butler, Adrien Brody, Marie Trintignant, David Strathairn, Brendan Gleeson, Alun Armstrong, Christopher Clarke
Director: Elie Chouraqui
Director: Elie Chouraqui
Screenwriter: Elie Chouraqui, Michael Katims, Isabel Ellsen
Producer: Albert J. Cohen
Composer: Bruno Coulais, Pascal Obispo
Studio: Universal Focus
Reviews for Harrison's Flowers
It's a hysterical, schizophrenic mishmash of styles and elements, a gruesome and realistic war film wrapped in a weepy Hallmark card.
Lacking gravitas, MacDowell is a placeholder for grief, and ergo this sloppy drama is an empty vessel. Leave these Flowers unpicked -- they’re dead on the vine.
Built on a foundation of melodrama and implausible coincidence, Harrison's Flowers is a movie that looks far better on paper than it does onscreen.
MacDowell and Brody give emotionally galvanizing performances, but too often Flowers arranges itself on a bier that goes flat.
Traveling in Yugoslavia doesn't open MacDowell's well-rested eyes one bit, and the movie's interest in the problems of Yugoslavia is just lip service.
The outcome for Sarah and Harrison starts to feel slightly irrelevant, compared to the awfulness they observe and endure.
Split between the bloody relentlessness of the war scenes and the verging-on-schmaltz sentiment on the home front.
A stupefying mix of action, politics and melodrama that is as vaguely condescending as the inept but well-meaning pictures about apartheid from the 1980's.
A stronger actress, say Michelle Pfeiffer or Cate Blanchette, would have given this political melodrama more credibility and power, but Andie MacDowell is poorly cast and she seems lost.
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