She's So Lovely (1997)
Bobby Cooper, Burt Young, Chloe Webb
A romantic fable about Eddie and Maureen--young, married and passionately crazy about each other. Drunk, unstable and about to have a baby, they live in a world of funky barflys and colorful low-lifes, living it up on no money and their manic, co-dependent need for each other. When a neighbor attack... (read more) A romantic fable about Eddie and Maureen--young, married and passionately crazy about each other. Drunk, unstable and about to have a baby, they live in a world of funky barflys and colorful low-lifes, living it up on no money and their manic, co-dependent need for each other. When a neighbor attacks Maureen, Eddie snaps and it costs him ten years of his life in a mental institution. Upon Eddie's returns, he discovers that his wife has re-married and she is caught in the middle between the past and the present.
Flixster Users
R, 1 hr. 40 min.
Directed by:
Nick Cassavetes
Release Date: Aug 29, 1997
DVD Release Date: Nov 14, 2000
Your Rating
Your Friends' Ratings
No recent reviews.
Flixster User Reviews
She's So Lovely (1997) Good movie about bad people. I mainly rented this because it was John Cassavettes son Nick producing and directing his fatherâs last script. I have long been fan of John Cassavettes movies even though they are not main street... (read more) She's So Lovely (1997) Good movie about bad people. I mainly rented this because it was John Cassavettes son Nick producing and directing his fatherâs last script. I have long been fan of John Cassavettes movies even though they are not main street movie fare. Maureen is pregnant and her husband Eddie is missing. Nervous, Maureen shares a couple of drinks with neighbor Kiefer, who tries to rape her and then beats her. When Eddie returns and finds his wife bruised, he goes ballistic, shoots a paramedic and is put in a psychiatric institution. Ten years later, Eddie is released and finds that Maureen has divorced him and is remarried with three children, one of whom is his little girl Jeanie. Eddie goes to reclaim his wife. Ebert made point that it helps going into this movie to realize in advance that the two main characters are "mad" or "insane" Sean Penn said this was one of his best works never seen. He won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his hot-blooded and heartfelt performance as Eddie Quinn. The movie can be seen to be about the power of love. Those of a more practical mind may see it as a sad depiction of a woman unable to escape completely the lure of sex and self-abuse (from an insane man). I see this movie as kind of a comic-romance. The movie is choppy and spirals downward to nowhere in the last half. This is an ok movie but not a masterpiece. Both Penn's are fantastic in their roles but the storyline and time line in the movie sucked. There's nothing wrong with works that deal with ugliness, even celebrate it. The most profoundly moral of films may be the most disturbing. But when writers/directors/producers trivialize ugliness, turn it into light, ironic comedy, make it nothing more than an occasion for throwaway style comedic/anger improvisation, the film becomes ugly itself. This film was only intermittently enjoyable. three stars
I can't figure out if this was an offbeat, brilliant, quirky bit of black humor, or simply a total mess of a movie. There's certainly a lot of talent put to pretty good use here: Robin Wright Penn more than holds her own in every scene with Sean Penn... (read more) I can't figure out if this was an offbeat, brilliant, quirky bit of black humor, or simply a total mess of a movie. There's certainly a lot of talent put to pretty good use here: Robin Wright Penn more than holds her own in every scene with Sean Penn, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, and Harry Dean Stanton -- and all of them are terrific. And you want to sympathize with her plight. But the film turns downright bizarre three-quarters of the way through -- like all of a sudden Quentin Tarantino took the reins from Nick Cassavettes. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but like I said, I'm just not sure if Nick meant for this to happen, or if he just lost control.
Its sad to see potential go to waste. Especially, when the potential and the originality is so rare, so moving.
The first one hour of the film is a masterpiece, an extraordinary script where nothing much happens and yet everything happens. Sean Pe... (read more) Its sad to see potential go to waste. Especially, when the potential and the originality is so rare, so moving.
The first one hour of the film is a masterpiece, an extraordinary script where nothing much happens and yet everything happens. Sean Penn never fails to surprise, always manages to pluck up something new, and this has to be one of his best performances. Robin Wright is simply brilliant as the yound wife, torn between love and fear, desire and duty, and ultimately between herself and her husband. James Gandolfini puts in a little gem, as he arrives for a short while as the man who attempts a sexual assualt on his neighbourhood house-wive, attempting to lure her with whisky and blues.
Simply, the first half-hour brings on a platter the likes of Woody Allen, Martin Scorscese, even bits of Altman. THe audience starts expecting that the film will lead them to a rare realm of cinematic experience.
But unfortunately for 'She's so Lovely', it stops there, although there are a few stunning dialogues in there as well.
But the problem, the big hole in the entire project is the script. The film ultimately feels like a project on which the people had started working with a script only half-done, with the other half only loosely at the back of their minds.
What should have been a great saga on human frailties turns out to be a slugfest between two men who have been married to the same woman. The ultimate message, although sounds beautiful and sonorous, is way to confused,(She doesn't love you, she doesn't love me, she is de lovely!). The strings fall apart from the script, and fittingly even penn looks at a loss as to what he's supposed to do at that point.
Ultimately, what saves this film is the memorable first half hour, the depth of the chemistry between sean penn and his eventual real-life wife robin wright penn.
A few excerpts - "The world is ruled by seven women and a computer"
Eddie telling his daughter, "I didn't come here for you, I came her for my wife. I didn't marry you."
and then telling her again, "We can't be best-friends, cause you'll have a lot of best friends throughout your life. But we should be second best-friends. There's only ever one second best friend."
Watch it for the performances, for the potential. Don't watch it if you have something better to do.
This is one of my all time favs! Sean Penn (as always) is phenomenal and Robin Wright Penn was great too....they are perfect together in this movie.
Magnifiquement pénétrant sentimentalement boulversant parfaitement realisé.
Des acteurs dans une forme olympique mais le film pene a decoller et il fodra attendre pres de 1h pour pouvoir profiter du face a face Travolta Penn dont les repliques sont jubilatoires!
different. surprisingly quite good though but i can understand if some dont like it.
c'est un film de malade! je sais pas comment le définir autrement. merci les cassavetes pour votre talent. sean penn, t'es génial! ;-)
Critic Reviews
No recent reviews.
Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.
Cast
More Like This
No recent suggestions.
Bookmark This App
Make it easy to check out new movies! Click +Bookmark Movies at the bottom of your screen.
- Get Flixster
- iPhone (free!)
- Myspace
- Flixster.com
- iGoogle
- Settings
- Profile Settings
- My Account
- Help
















