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Lovely & Amazing (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:96
Rotten:17
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: The bitingly truthful Lovely & Amazing is a smart and perceptive female character study.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis:
Academy-Award nominated actresses Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich") and Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets & Lies") star in Nicole Holofcener's follow-up feature to her critically acclaimed debut...
Academy-Award nominated actresses Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich") and Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets & Lies") star in Nicole Holofcener's follow-up feature to her critically acclaimed debut "Walking and Talking." A finely observed comedy, LOVELY & AMAZING is an intimate family portrait of four hapless but resilient women and the bittersweet lessons they learn in keeping up with the hectic demands of their individual neuroses.
Jane Marks (Blethyn) is the matriarch of a confused trio of daughters that seems to have nothing in common, except for a peculiar sort of idealism -- a heady brew of vanity, insecurity and humor. Former homecoming queen Michelle (Keener), the eldest daughter, is in a loveless marriage with a spouse who does not appreciate her decidedly obscure artistic endeavors. Younger sister Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer), an insecure actress whose career is beginning to take off, compulsively takes home stray dogs, saving them whether or not they need to be saved.
Only the youngest sister, Annie, an adopted African American eight-year old, seems to stand a chance at rising above the family's legacy. But on the threshold of what promises to be a confusing adolescence, Annie has developed a preoccupation with her appearance -- natural enough for a pre-teen-- but given her adoptive family's history, quite possibly a hint of what's to come.
Each of the women seeks redemption in her own haphazard way, but whatever salvation they find is illusory and shortlived.
Starring: Catherine Keener, Jake Gyllenhaal, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer
Starring: Catherine Keener, Jake Gyllenhaal, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer, Raven Goodwin, Dermot Mulroney, James LeGros
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Screenwriter: Nicole Holofcener
Producer: Ted Hope, Anthony Bregman, Eric D'Arbeloff
Composer: Craig Richey
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Reviews for Lovely & Amazing
By the end of it all I sort of loved the people onscreen, even though I could not stand them. Perhaps the film should be seen as a conversation starter. It's not an easy one to review.
Holofcener has crafted a comedy which acknowledges not just our neuroses about our bodies, but also the messy, ambivalent complexities of adult family relationships.
Seldom do movies create focus through spontaneity, but Lovely & Amazing feeds on surprise
Has a lovely feel, interactions that are real & unafraid to broach life's insecurities -- ie: personal appearance from hair to body fat. However, doesn't add up to amazing.
Captures the body-image insecurities of women while delving more than skin-deep into her characters' psyches.
As in Walking and Talking, her comic lament on the evils that brides do to their maids of honor, [Nicole] Holofcener strikes a careful balance between distaff divertissement and stark, semiautobiographical realism.
Not long enough to be a ‘message movie’, but insightful enough to hold our attention while exploring the lives of these characters.
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