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One True Thing
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by Universal Studios
Sales Rank: 25298
Price: $14.98
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Based on Anna Quindlen's bestselling novel, this is a mother-daughter and father-daughter story, two for the price of one. But director Carl Franklin also tries to inject a police-mystery angle that it neither needs nor will support. Renee Zellweger plays a young writer on the rise, who has finally gotten her break for a New York magazine. While home for a birthday party for her nearly famous writer father (William Hurt), she learns that her mother (Meryl Streep) has been diagnosed with cancer. Then her father does the unthinkable: He all but commands her to put her career on hold to take care of her mother and nurse her through her illness. Dad, a popular college professor who has never gotten the literary acclaim he always believed he deserved, essentially checks out--and daughter must play parent to her mother. Strong performances by Streep and Zellweger give this parent-child relationship the heart--and the anger--of the real thing, while Hurt seems slightly disembodied as the self-involved father whose needs have dominated both women. Still, the detective-story aspect (the film is told in flashback, as the cops try to discover whether someone slipped Mom a fatal dose of morphine) is a construct that could have been done without. <I>--Marshall Fine</I>
Viewer Reviews
One True Thing tells the touching and sensitive story of how a young woman (Ellen Gulden, played by Renée Zellweger) comes to understand her parents and their relationship with each other when a crisis strikes the family. The acting is superb; and the cast is full of top-notch actors: Ellen's mother Kate Gulden is played by Meryl Streep; and Kate's father George Gulden is played by William Hurt. Look also for a fine performance by Tom Everett Scott as Ellen's brother Brian Gulden.
When the action starts, a tough as nails and ambitious Ellen Gulden comes home for her father's surprise birthday party. Despite the fact that she looks up to her father as a great writer, the fact remains that Ellen doesn't truly value her parent's lifestyle. In fact, Ellen even acts ambivalently at best without apologies toward her mother Kate who is clearly cherishing traditional values of motherhood that clash sharply with Ellen's values of climbing the corporate ladder as a single woman in a world where it's "dog-eat-dog."
Although Ellen returns to her high pressure job in New York City after the party, it is not long before her father George calls her back home--and this time George wants Ellen to stay a while. Sadly, Ellen's mother Kate has been stricken with an incurable form of cancer and George is too selfish to take nay responsibility for his wife's care. Ellen resents being "stuck with" her sick mother; and she slowly comes to realize that her father George doesn't exactly deserve to be on that pedestal she put him on. Ellen must deal with realizations and the truth about her parents and their marriage that she never dreamed of--for example, her father's endless "flings" with younger woman at the college where he teaches understandably upset Ellen. Moreover, Ellen finally breaks down just enough to ask her ailing mother just how she (Kate, her mother) manages to do all the household work. Ellen comes to realize that household work is truly a challenge in certain ways. The scene in which Kate talks to her daughter Ellen about the understanding, work and compromise that make a marriage successful is particularly powerful.
What happens when Ellen's mother Kate is in her final days? Can Ellen and George take the stress or do they fail to rise to the occasion? Moreover, throughout the movie Ellen is seen talking with the local District Attorney about exactly how her mother died--it seems that Kate died of a morphine overdose. This, of course, creates a "flashback" type of movie. Did Ellen or George intentionally give Kate an overdose to help her end her suffering? The answer may surprise you.
The DVD comes with a few extras; I really enjoyed the featurette in which the principle actors discuss their feelings about the film and working with each other. We get information about the careers of the actors and producer Carl Franklin gives his thoughts about the movie as well.
Overall, One True Thing is a movie with brilliant performances by all the actors and the movie thoughtfully examines the relationship dynamics within the Gulden family. We learn that in many families, not just the Gulden family, things are not what they always seem to be; and we learn how Ellen slowly but surely becomes a better person for having had a chance to truly get to know her parents, especially the mother she used to devalue so much.
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One True Thing
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Last Modified : 1-7-2009
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