As a longtime Shirley MacLaine fan, I'm surprised that this 2017 indie escaped my notice. It's a predictable but savory comedy-drama, with retired control freak MacLaine masterminding her obituary, and entrusting it to low-level reporter Amanda Seyfried, and aiming to generate a more sympathetic obit by taking AnnJewel Lee Dixon (and she's wonderful), a sassy 9-year-old, under her wing.
It's not entirely credible, it goes exactly where you expect it to: We know MacLaine will find a new sense of purpose, Seyfried will expand her potential (and fall in love, with an unremarkable Thomas Sadoski), and the female bonding quotient will be off the charts. Worse, it has practically no sense of place; at first the palm trees had me assuming Florida, then the mountains suggested the West. California? But MacLaine makes the most of her unsympathetic part, Seyfried adds grace notes to a somewhat one-dimensional character, and the life lessons are both amusing and plangent. A very nice little art house flick that should have gotten more attention.
It's not entirely credible, it goes exactly where you expect it to: We know MacLaine will find a new sense of purpose, Seyfried will expand her potential (and fall in love, with an unremarkable Thomas Sadoski), and the female bonding quotient will be off the charts. Worse, it has practically no sense of place; at first the palm trees had me assuming Florida, then the mountains suggested the West. California? But MacLaine makes the most of her unsympathetic part, Seyfried adds grace notes to a somewhat one-dimensional character, and the life lessons are both amusing and plangent. A very nice little art house flick that should have gotten more attention.