The Greatest

First and foremost, Susan Sarandon has played this part before; many times and she never ceases to bore me. Pierce Brosnan is wonderful. He's the best thing in the movie. Carrie Mulligan's character is easy and not something that required much effort. The younger son's character is vapid and so is the character of the chick who befriends him in grief counseling. And finally, one never totally given real proof of the relationship between the character of Jennifer Ehle and Brosnan. It's vagueness is so boring...one just wants to say: "Oh for crying out loud...stop the sentimental innuendo and just lay it out there." The story is so mundane and throw-away, one almost wonders why they bothered to make this gushy and schmaltzy film anyhow. The whole thing is as if no one has ever lost kids before and no set of parents have EVER grieved the death of their child.

Except for the baby ,the movie will remind Italian cinema buffs of "La Stanza DeL Figlio" and the part of Ryan is close to Conrad the young brother of "ordinary people" ;like in the contemporary "rabbit hole" each of the parents desperately searches for solace:the mother tries to talk to the other injured driver to know the last words of her son (whereas Nicole Kidman,fascinated by a comic ,wants to believe that in parallel universes ,her son is happy);the father tries to live again,goes to the movie theater with the pregnant girlfriend,attends the echography whereas his wife quickly leaves the room "if you lose your dog,we're not given a puppy!" The cast is excellent ,particularly Pierce Brosnan,cast against type :he and his younger son seem to have overcome the pain,but when they finally break down,their despair and their tears are deeply moving.The flashbacks are short and effective ,particularly the last one which is also the end of the movie and which is not a goodbye but a hello.

The Greatest (2009) A crisis of youth becomes a crisis for a whole family, and it's serious stuff. There's an attempt, very conspicuous in gesture and angst filled expressions, to be gritty and real, and it's a believable scenario. It's a tearjerker, surely, an intimate psychodrama dripping in sentiment. However, the movie depends almost purely on this terrible crisis to succeed, and that's actually slightly backwards, in movie terms. That is, it should be the writing and acting that sweeps us in and makes us share the grief of the main characters. You end up wanting to empathize, but it's sometimes despite the movie, which pushes very hard, like a friend who wants to make you feel bad about something. It has such touching moments it's hard to quite accept that a lot of it is clumsily written, almost like a high budget beginner's film, which sounds worse than I mean it. But you'll see, I think, even if you love it thoroughly, that it works modestly. So accept its flaws, ignore the obvious flashbacks to the good times, skip the dining room table where people are sitting all on one side so we can see them all from the camera, ignore the patter that is meant to make life ordinary and doesn't, and so on. Be forgiving or give it a pass. What saves the movie (somewhat) from its excesses is the performance of the lead girl, Rose (Carey Mulligan), and the father, Mr. Brewer, played by Pierce Brosnan, who is a nuanced dad, whatever his James Bond pedigree, though neither one is given decent lines to work with. (Brosnan was also a producer, go figure.) The mother is meant to be disturbed in her grief, and she sure is. The sexy grad assistant is too too obvious even for the movies. And the brother, well, what is his role, actually, just to add a second improbable plot? And there is surveillance video of the crash, which is beyond even reasonable open-mindedness, given the isolation implied by the first several minutes of the movie. The sensationalism of that, alone, will warn you of what's to come. Okay, one last confession. It gets so emotionally atomic at times, with the throbbing cellos coming in the background, I had to laugh out loud. I swear. And yet, I see how it deals with some truly, believably gorgeous stuff.

A 6.6 out of 10 is disgusting, this movie was amazing and is definitely one of my favorites. I just finished it and I am still crying. I cried from start to finish, even laughed a little. Its heart warming in a kind of dark way. I will recommend this movie to everyone I know and will most definitely watch it again, and will more than likely cry just as much. Anyone debating on whether or not to watch this movie....WATCH IT! Its wonderful. Kept me interested from start to finish, awesome casting. This movie makes you feel like you knew Bennet and that you were grieving with the family. You feel their pain even though you may not have gone through something as tragic.