Its noble intentions are undermined by syrupy, movie-of- the-week direction.
Comment
09/05/03
Home Room (2002)
52
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:11
Rotten:10
Average Rating:5.5/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: In the aftermath of a small town high school shooting, nine are killed and one, popular Deanna (Erika Christensen), is wounded. As students and the victims' relatives try to make sense of the... [More]
Starring: Busy Philipps, Erika Christensen, Victor Garber, Ken Jenkins
Director: Paul F. Ryan
Reviews for Home Room
Alicia and Deanna's journey toward friendship, or at least a truer understanding, is moving.
09/12/03
Weighted by good intentions, Ryan turns a potentially riveting story of two lost souls shaken by trauma into a sappy teen drama.
09/12/03
Not only awful but also possessed of the potential for being truly offensive to the victims of the atrocities off which it pings.
07/16/03
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12/06/05
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11/18/03
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08/03/05
Dismal but not disheartening, this tale of picking up the pieces is as cutting as those pieces can be and as satisfying as cleaning up the mess.
09/06/03
In the midst of this didactic, self-conscious movie about a high school shooting comes an extraordinary and intense performance by a young actress named Busy Philipps, which elevates the whole picture.
09/08/03
Top CriticAt times, Home Room threatens to become a Driving Miss Daisy for the Clueless set.
09/04/03
With an unconscionably long running time of 2 hours and 11 minutes for what is essentially a two-hander between Philipps and Christensen, Home Room feels like detention -- without the possibility of recess.
09/04/03
Top CriticThe relationship that Deanna and Alicia forge is fascinating...as it allows for a genuine search for truth instead of something that is forced or contrived.
11/05/03
Thanks to Philipps's explosive need and Christensen's struggling vulnerability, we see the human costs inherent in tragedy once the TV trucks have left and only the haunting remains.
10/14/03
Too often crosses the line between good melodrama and rank cliché.
09/05/03
Overall, it plays like the world's longest -- over two hours -- after-school special.
09/05/03
At 133 minutes, Home Room is sluggishly paced and refuses to lighten up for even a second.
09/04/03
Top CriticOverwrought, way too long, and rife with emotional implausibilities, the film comes very close to being an affront to the memory of the victims of these real-life catastrophes, because very little in it comes very close to being real.
09/04/03
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12/05/03
Though the film is overlong (it runs over two hours), it's never boring - mainly due to a pair of fantastic lead performances.
01/11/04
A powerful movie that loses some of its momentum by touching on too many stories. It's not always easy to watch, but it's thought provoking.
09/05/03
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