Fantastic!

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I find this one of the most moving stories because it is not a frolic through the daisies, walking along the beach and live happily ever after stories. The leading man is not the "prince charming" that it is rumored most women seek. The heroine is not the perfect girl-next-door sweetheart that has men lining up for a dance. Their lives are not enviable. Their relationship is not coveted. I can't even say that the characters are admirable or likable. In fact some might find them contemptuous. However, it is a story about love that doesn't shy away from a reality of true love that few dare to portray - pain, sacrifice and possibly doing the wrong thing.

I didn't know what to expect from this film, but whatever I got is about ten times better than whatever I was expecting, if that makes sense.The characters are so likable. And the acting is just phenomenal. There were several scenes I had to back up and watch again just because some of the layers of small gestures and expressions and emotional choices are so genius, I just couldn't believe how thoughtfully turned out it all was.(Hint: Watch Penn's face when he is asking his tired, pregnant wife to put on heels and a nice dress for going out. Men, that is how you get your woman to say "YES!") And I love the theme of honesty in this movie. The characters are all more honest with themselves and each other than anyone you'll meet in the world, and they're also more tolerant of other people's honesty than real people are. It's beautiful, and it's not "brutal" honesty. And everything is beautiful until that honesty is taken away (by good intentions).Yes, I agree they oversimplified the whole missing ten years thing, but I don't mind because this was such a stunningly original, surprising little love story.Remarkable.Oh, and extra credit for including Tito Larriva!

Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn fall in love, but their lives are everything but stable. Sean Penn is sent to jail for a number of years and when he is released he returns to his love Robin Wright Penn. She is now married to John Travolta and they have several kids. Normally this kind of family business would take months or even years to solve, but these crazy people and kids settle everything in one day. This means emotions, actions and dialog concentrated to the very essence of these peoples lives. Quite fascinating to watch and reminding of the way director Nick Cassavetes' father John Cassavetes used to make movies. Sean Penn always puts his soul into his work and the other actors do a great job. This movie is great fun. Watch it!!!

It is clear from his performance here why Sean Penn eventually won an Oscar. Although I didn't like the character, Penn effectively showed many dimensions of the troubled Eddie Quinn. I thoroughly despised Maureen, and I don't know how to evaluate Robin Wright Penn's performance. Jack wasn't much better, though his circumstances contributed to this, and I believe John Travolta did a good job playing him.Other good performances came from Kelsey Mulrooney as Jack's 9-year-old adopted daughter Jeannie, Harry Dean Stanton as Eddie's best friend Shorty, and Justina Machado as Carmen Rodriguez, who sold tickets at the dance club and was a real breath of fresh air in this depressing movie despite having only a few lines. What I really liked was the music. Some of these may just have been background rather than recorded for other purposes, and some of the background music I liked but didn't pay that much attention to. -Big band jazz with the opening credits, though in my opinion the vocal performance was horrendous.-More good jazz on the way to the dance club.-Latin jazz in the dance club, but I didn't care for the vocalist.-Italian-flavored easy listening in Lorenzo's Restaurant.-Late in the movie, more good jazz as Eddie sat in Shorty's car drinking.-Still more good jazz, but in a style totally out of character for the scene, when Eddie got out of Shorty's car for the second time.-Big band jazz--but with bawdy lyrics--in the closing credits. And there were other songs used that I didn't like as much, including one Motown-type tune that I began to associate with a particularly unpleasant moment in the movie as I heard it during commercial breaks, when we were reminded what we were watching.Some people may enjoy a movie like this. Not me.