Very well executed

Sick Product of a Sick System

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

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Yeah this was a pretty depressing movie about a grief stricken couple who find chaos and comfort when they reluctantly take in a young woman (Cary Mulligan) who claims to be pregnant with the baby of their recently deceased son. It's filled with such great acting though, -and not just from the obvious (Pierce Brosnan & Susan Sarandon) so that you really get pulled into the story.The family is such a mess after the death of their son that its almost painful to watch. Sarandon's character becomes a selfish bitch, for lack of a better word and Allen (Brosnan) just shuts down altogether. They both refuse to see the gift that is right in front of them in their sons unborn baby and his girlfriend who is just crying out for love and full of questions. I also enjoyed watching the younger brother deal with not only his brothers death but the decline of his parents and family as a whole. 08.13

The story is a study of grief, how it affects one dysfunctional family, whose son is killed in a motor accident. Three months later, their son's girlfriend arrives, pregnant.In some ways the film did remind of Ordinary People. However this film despite getting a fine cast with Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon as the grieving parents is let down by first time writer and director who could not weave a strong enough screenplay.Its well acted but feels flat. Michael Shannon and Jennifer Ehle make brief appearances. Shannon plays the truck driver who was also involved in the accident and provides illumination as to what happened to the son between the accident and his passing.There is eventually a resolving of this emotional drama as the family begin to deal with their loss and realise the need to pull together.

The Greatest is a drama film written and directed by Shana Feste.It features Pierce Brosnan,Susan Sarandon, Carey Mulligan, and Michael Shannon.The film is about a tragedy that opens the wounds a family has long struggled to ignore.Bennett Brewer was a bright, handsome, and talented young man who was suddenly killed in an auto accident late one night while driving home with Rose, a girl who had been a close friend for years but had only recently become romantically involved with him. Bennett's death devastates his family: his mother, Grace, is overcome with grief and can't stop wondering what his final minutes must have been like;while his father Allen is forced to turn away from his mistress and try to comfort a woman he's no longer certain he loves; and brother Ryan mourns Bennett while becoming painfully aware that he will never live up to his late brother's example in the eyes of his parents. As grief slowly brings the family's emotional troubles to the surface, two unwelcome characters come into the picture -- Rose, who has discovered she's pregnant with Bennett's child, and the truck driver who unwittingly took Bennett's life.The performances of the cast is stellar especially Pierce Brosnan,who proves that he can act in dramatic films.While Sarandon and Mulligan does not disappoint.But unfortunately,the film uses many recycled plots from film that one would find The Greatest predictable and far from refreshing.But nevertheless,it provides insights on familial issues and it does not fail to entertain.It is still a good view though.

Confusingly, Muhammad Ali is nowhere to be seen in this film. Or if he was in there I'd fallen asleep before he appeared.A waste of a good cast. All of them tried their best, with the exception of Susan Sarandon who just played her standard 'Miserable Mother 1' role as seen in several other films.The plot was implausible to say the least. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the script writing sessions. Didn't anyone realise this was pants? "Wait a minute...you can't do that !" We have a car crash. The boy dies. The parents (and the cops, fire service,medics and coroner ) fail to notice that a girl was in the car with him. How ? Did she walk off, or something ? Or get kidnapped by aliens ?Were none of her belongings, purse, blood etc. found in the wreak ? Then the loopy mother spends all her time trying to interview the driver of the OTHER CAR, not the other person IN THE CAR, who has magically vanished. Somehow the other driver managed to have a chat with her son while succumbing to a cerebral bleed ( like you do ) and falling into an inconvenient coma.Then it gets worse. The girlfriend turns up at the funeral, wearing a huge and obvious arm cast. No one asks who the hell she is. Then later she turns up at their house saying she is carrying the son's unborn child. Dad is completely shocked. Not even having noticed her at the funeral, never mind in the hospital where she must have been taken after the crash.This preposterous plot could only have worked if the car crash had taken place on a frontier between two warring countries. Then the two occupants of the car MIGHT have plausibly ended up in separate hospitals. But this seemed to be set in the USA.Apart from Cary Mulligan acting sexually aroused at the beginning, something very few US actresses would dare do, this film had no merits at all. If you blinked or came in late you would have missed this bit.