As Good As It Gets

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Blistering performances.

Jesus can't pass through the gate because Moslems are buried on the other side.The first 3rd or so was very good if you like hot young blonds in a state of undress. It goes downhill fast after that.The entire premise is ridiculous, there is an all powerful god who isn't powerful enough to come to Earth. Then the story doesn't go downhill, it falls off a cliff. It reminds me of The Omen and Boys from Brazil, but this is a perfectly good child created.God wants the original 10 commandment tablets returned for some reason.Actually this is the second set, Moses smashed the first ones in a pique of anger when the people made the golden calf.

The discovery of heaven is the magnum opus of Dutch writer Harry Mulisch, where science, religion and philosophy meet in a 900-page book full of autobiographical details, among which the persecution of Jews in WW2 and the roaring sixties. The story in a nutshell: Science and technology have on earth substituted the Ten Commandments of Moses, so a plan is conceived by God and his angels to bring the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments back from earth to heaven, as the contract between mankind and God is abandoned. Angels are given this task by God, and a child is born on earth to accomplish heaven's plan. The child is the result of a love triangle between astronomer Max Delius (the writer Mulisch), politician Onno Quist and a cellist Ada Brons. (One example of the level of detail in the book: A remarkable congruency is that Max's father, who betrayed his Jewish wife in WW2, has three important locations where his life played out and Auschwitz is the center of again a triangle) As the book states that coincidence does not exist and everything has a reason, all events happening are arranged by angels in heaven including the conception of the child, although Max Delius is on the brink of scientifically discovering heaven.In the script they made a good effort to condense the book to its bare essentials by selecting the most relevant parts for the movie. But there are (also in the book) irrelevant loose elements that seem redundant and distract from the core message: Vietnam demonstrations, the whole Cuba part, some characters and relations add little. And there are things from the book they could have used like all mothers having the same face after the tablets are placed. Stephen Fry's often failed attempts to be funny are out of place although the book contains some humor: The weapon course in Cuba and Onno's walking stick interpreted as a miracle when seen as Moses' stick. The ending is better in the book than in the movie, where it is somewhat banal.The pacing is unnecessarily slow despite the enormous amount of events happening in both the movie and the book. The story is told in a very predictable and straightforward way; the director Jeroen Krabbé is just not up to this job and has little imagination and visual style. Take the many direct references to religion and heaven and even the way heaven is represented. Or the clumsy way the deaths are foreshadowed with a short flash. I guess Peter Greenaway (planning to do a movie on Rembrandt) would have been a better choice as director, but this had to make some money being a lavish production for Dutch standards. The role of God and angels is comparable here to that of the writer of the book; in the movie to the role of the director (and even actor Krabbé as angel). Because the best movies are usually about other movies, the book and script lacks writers, photographers, painters or publishers to lift this to a meta-level. Here we have the relative mundane politicians and scientists.As science is about everything that can be potentially explained, religion is about everything that can not be explained rationally. The book and movie's statement that physics may one day take over religion, or make religion redundant, is fairly accurate as metaphysics is coming increasingly closer to a theory of everything. But as our knowledge increases, a warning is issued that it will not necessarily lead to a greater happiness or higher morality. The book and movie mixes small, uninteresting stories with larger-than-life stories in a strange and awkward way. It also messes things up inconsistently (e.g. in the book there is an image of concentration camps in space). Some of the book and movie consists of contrived, pseudo-intellectual nonsense, being deliberately pretentious lacking any mastery of the art form at hand (be it writing or film-making).

I saw this one together with my father, he read the book, i didn't bother to read the 600 pages. I dont like Mullisch very much he does. The actors are so well chosen, the fit in just right. Quinten could really be their son etc. I cried, i laughed it was just great. Funny part is to see the places in a'dam and westerbork were i've been myself. First finnishing my book i'm reading now, then Mullisch and then prob. Lord of the Rings. I wouldn't say thjis was the best movie i ever seen, but it sure fits in between my other favourites like the godfather, apocalypse now etc. Maybe to much credit but i was wondering if that was because i'm dutch. But the movie has such an international caracter that i doubt it. Well that's it. let me know what you though of it. Bart

There is a lot to say about the movie, but I think you should enjoy it yourself. For me it was balancing the odds. First of all Harry Mulisch is not your average writer. I could never get into his books. You might wonder why bother? Well that can be told in two words 'the Assault'. It got a Oscar, but even beyond that. The movie is an amazing story about the life of a boy that changes when a collaborator is executed in front of his house. The second factor was Jeroen Krabbe. He is an okay actor. Over the big international field nothing fantastic but for Dutch terms one of the best actors we have. When I saw his movie 'left luggage' I was totally overwhelmed. As a director he is at least 10 times better then as an actor. These factors made me check out 'The Discovery of Heaven.' The book I could never read. Well, it was an amazing journey. From the very beginning you will be mesmerized with the images of places unlike you would expect. The dialogues, the personality of the people and the settings. It is almost like the settings in the world politics were set up especially for these events. I think that the most amazing part is that you can go through the dialogues without ever wondering when the next action scene will be. Jeroen plays with the settings like they are part of the conversation itself.But what is it about? Well apparently god is not too pleased with the way the world turns. So he decides to remove his influence. This can only be done by sending someone down to get the tablets. So two men will meet a woman, the beautiful Ada Brons (Flora Montgomery) one will become the father and the child will grow up slowly receiving the images that will lead to the tablets containing the 10 commandments. The only problem is that time is running out. God's deadline must be met. I can't wait to get this one on DVD.