Search found 1 match: Minnie Driver

This is not a link to a collection, but a place for me to put a set of short reviews of films about grief. If someone wants to make a collection out of my list as it accumulates, feel free. Eventually I may do it myself, but for now I am only interested in exploiting a criticker.com forum for this purpose of putting my reviews in one place.

My wife died on 1 September. We had been together for 21 years, and have two lovely daughters who in their own way keep my memories of my wife alive. Thanks in advance for any condolences.

I am coping reasonably well in the circumstances, and one of the ideas I had for both confronting the loss and creating a foundation for moving on was to look at cinematic representations of grief. I have been adding films to a list I keep from lists other people have compiled on the Internet, and also serendipitously through coming across references to grief in plot summaries of films that catch my eye on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The first film was sourced from the comments to a blog post about films about grief.

RETURN TO ME
The comments section of a web site told me this contained a very realistic portrayal of a grieving male. And it did, for about a minute, if that, intercut with scenes that set up the rest of the film. We see David Duchovny, collapse in grief beside his front door and weep uncontrollably, having held it all together until that moment when he is alone, except for his dog.

Then we jump forward a year, sparing the audience the harsh reality of the daily grind of grief. Eventually the film ties the grief and hope together in an exercise demanding considerable suspension of disbelief.

In other words, it’s a chick-flick. The fetching Minnie Driver is the eventual object of romantic interest on the part of Duchovny's character. I found it rather telling that while we are introduced to several members of her family, and shown them going about their lives, the background of Duchovny's character remains very spare. He has a successful career, a dog, and a nice apartment, a best friend and that's it. It is a situation perfect as the framework for a woman under a patriarchal system to move into and transform to serve her own interests.

The structure demands a good supporting cast and the one on offer does decently at what it is asked to do. Except I found the presence of James Belushi difficult to justify in the context of the plot. He was very external to the other goings-on, a piece of husband-comedy. His casting seemed to be inevitable given the Chicago setting, One probably needs to cast him in order to get permits to film there, or something.

Overall this was a near-failure at portraying and helping understand the grief consequent on spousal loss.

Grade: D-.