One True Thing

One True Thing

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DVD Reviews of One True Thing

DVD Review: It Goes Where Most Aren't Willing...
Summary: 5 Stars

I watched this film again recently, and again I was amazed at all that this movie accomplishes in a very understated way. At a time when I personally feel frustrated at all the preachiness I see going on in literature and movies, I am a champion of this masterpiece. This film engaged me, brought me through a rich journey, and left me as a changed person...all without telling me what I should take away from the film.

For a little more background, the storyline is as follows: an up-and-coming NYC journalist (Zellweger) goes home to celebrate her father's birthday in a small town. She despises the vulgar simplicity of the town, her mother, the costume party, etc. However, she absolutely idolizes her father, who is a well-known English professor at a nearby university.

However, while she is at home, her beloved father coerces her to put her budding career on hold so she can take care of her mother (Streep), who she learns is battling cancer. Zellweger's character is openly angered & offended by this request...which is just the beginning of script filled with a refreshingly honest look at our ugly, selfish & occassionally brilliant emotions in such situations.

In coming to stay with her mother, Zellweger continues to despise the ignoble life of women's meetings, town decorating, baking, etc. that she is forced to join. Up to this point in the movie, everything is as you might predict or expect in the storyline. However, where the movie goes from here is absolutely phenomenal. As this daughter lives in her mom's world and begins to understand her mother's very understated, unacademic life, she is opened to whole new worlds of humanity. At the same time, as her opinion of her mother rises, her opinion of her father comes into question. As the movie explores this whole dynamic, more twists come and this daughter is overwhelmed by the complexity of relationships & adult life. No one is right. No one is wrong. Nothing is simple, and everyone struggles as he fights his own demons.

At the very end, this movie shows (not preaches but shows) an absolutely breath-taking portrayal of love well after the rose-tinted glasses have come off. I don't want to give anything away, but it's when Streep wraps her arms around her husband after his late night out. After being barraged with so many images of Hollywood love, the daughter (and the audience) is speechless at a protrayal of deep, full, rich love that has grown in the face of so much pain & struggle of life.

This might admittedly be more of a girl's movie than a guy's. One of my guy friends only stayed awake because of the DA interrogation of the daughter interspersed throughout the film. However, many, many of my girlfriends who hate chick flicks were as pierced by this movie as I was. (Many of them have also dismissed their mother's maternal role in their lives and have idolized their fathers.)

I simply can't express in words how wonderful and paniful and majestic this piece is. And it's so refreshing because it goes where so many films aren't willing to go - to the stuff of our true, everyday lives & situations that aren't glamorous but are filled with ugly emotions, pride, and underestimations of others.

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