The greatest movie ever!

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Even though it is almost 20 years old I only managed to see this movie now. It is mainly notable for DiCaprio's performance as a troubled teen right about the time he was in 'Romeo + Juliet', a movie I didn't care for, and about a year before 'Titanic' a movie I like very much.Meryl Streep is Lee, a hair dresser and not a very caring mother. She has two sons, Leonardo DiCaprio as 18-yr-old Hank and his younger brother Charlie. It is clear early that Hank does not like his mother and misses his dad. To the point that he takes a box of photos, dumps them on the upstairs bedroom floor, douses the pile with lighter fluid, and burns the pile.Unfortunately the whole house burns down so Hank ends up in a mental hospital to deal with his anger and poor decision-making.The movie's primary story really gets going when Lee's sister down in Florida, Diane Keaton as Bessie, lets her know that she was diagnosed with a form of leukemia and her only hope might be to get a marrow transplant from a suitable, compatible family member. So Lee, Hank, and Charlie make a road trip.The dad of the two sisters is Marvin, he is very sick and barely lucid, Bessie is his caregiver. He has his room he mostly stays in "Marvin's Room", which seems a rather arbitrary title to choose.The story is about family dynamics, including Hank's anger, Aunt Bessie seems to understand him and deals with him in a productive manner, something Lee can't quite seem to grasp. Bessie has no regrets, "there has been so much love in her live." When Lee agrees that people loves her she corrects that, it is the love Bessie has been able to give to others, something Lee had never understood before.Good, interesting movie but not great nor memorable.Robert De Niro has a nice supporting role as Bessie's physician, Dr. Wally. Old veteran Hume Cronyn, just a few years before he died, is Marvin.

There is a movie channel at the cable in here, Turkey. They usually air boring movies. Today I was blue and had nothing to do. Opened this channel and realized this movie is starting in 5 minutes. I thought "ehh another silly old TV movie" but when saw Merly Streep and Di Caprio's name, thought that, how come I heart nothing about this movie. Started very good and I started to feel better. This is a warm movie and you can watch with your family. It's really hard to find this kind of sincere American movies nowadays. I loved and thought it ended very early, wish they made it a little longer but cool anyways. Director and everything is very good. Recommended.

I came across this movie on Netflix and thought I would give it a go! Surely a movie with Meryl Streep and Dianne Keaton wouldn't disappoint! It sure didn't! While the story has been done before in various formats it's the screenplay that makes this movie a real gem. The main three actors really do a great job. But with Streep, Keaton and DiCaprio one would expect nothing less. For me the the late Gwen Verdon steals the show. she really shows how comedy should be done. The scene with the orange is one that stands out. A mixture of comedy and heart wrenching reality showcases how underrated she has been. This for me should have definitely gained a nod in any supporting actress awards. This movie certainly won't change your life but it really does provide you with food for though about love, family and the importance of life! Give it a go. It won't disappoint.

Small cast, intimate dramas like MARVIN'S ROOM, NIGHT MOTHER or STEEL MAGNOLIAS are among the hardest to adapt from the confines of the stage where the imagination can open the plays ideas up and make what might seem maudlin, real and life affirming to the more realistic form of film where it is harder to see beyond the mundane "bed pan" realities of life. In order to reinvent the best of these - like the plays mentioned above - to the new genre, every break is needed starting with bravura casts who, one hopes, an audience will want to see even "reading the phone book." When a play turns around the characters dealing literally with confrontations with death at the core of the plot as in these three great plays, what HAD been on stage a single set intense evening is frequently "opened up" with all sorts of other locations and events almost as if to distract us from the very issues which we are supposed to be attending to.On stage and screen MARVIN'S ROOM may well be the best of these three "death plays," all of which started and thrived Off-Broadway (only NIGHT MOTHER made the leap to a Broadway house in its initial production). While, somewhat amazingly (considering that one of the standards of the award is "depiction of American life"), MARVIN'S ROOM was not even a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992, it did win a number of other accolades which virtually demanded that Hollywood attempt to bring it to the rest of the nation - and they certainly gave it their all starting with the genuinely all star cast which is both the movie's blessing and its curse. It enraptures with the bouquet of bravura performances even while moving focus away from the central "earth-mother" of the family forced to face her own mortality while trying to care for and hold her collapsing family together around her (Diane Keaton's Oscar nomination - the film's only - notwithstanding).Ultimately, the film gets where the play was going (as well it ought to have, since Scott McPherson had the luxury of adapting his own play - he may have written his screenplay simultaneously with, if not before the tighter stage version, since he died in 1992, the year MARVIN'S ROOM received its Off-Broadway production at Playwrights' Horizons, winning the Outer Critics' Circle and Drama Desk Awards as best Play of the Year), but the power seems to have shifted from the play's revelations themselves to the dazzling performances. It's still well worth taking the trip, but more to appreciate a monument to more than a dozen brilliant stage and screen careers than a revelatory experience on the meaning of humanity in the face of life and death that the play had been.Do, by all means see the movie. It works. ...but if you ever get a chance to see the play which either suggested it or grew from it, by all means do - it's smaller but even better.