Pic has its share of laughs and entertainingly ticklish situations, and decent late-summer B.O. This star-driven comic take on the wages of infidelity displays much the same sisterly bonding against ratty men that marked Callie Khouri's far superior script for "Thelma & Louise," and Lasse Hallstrom's glossy, upscale diversion certainly holds more appeal for women than for men. Anne Shropshire Bland one moment and barbed the next, "Something to Talk About" dithers on like compulsive conversationalists who take twice as long as necessary to say what they want to say. Reviewed at Village Theater, L.A., July 27, 1995. Kurland assistant director, Stephen Dunn second unit director/camera, Paul Ryan casting, Marion Dougherty. Camera (Technicolor), Sven Nykvist editor, Mia Goldman music, Hans Zimmer, Graham Preskett production design, Mel Bourne set decoration, Roberta Holinko costume design, Aggie Guerard Rodgers sound (Dolby), Peter F. Produced by Anthea Sylbert, Paula Weinstein. An unbilled David Huddleston has a nice scene as an enthusiastic divorce lawyer.Ī Warner Bros. Looking quite filled out since his gaunt Doc Holliday in “Wyatt Earp,” Quaid is rambunctious and credible enough as the unfaithful hubby, and Rowlands’ initially quiescent proper Southern lady gets to rise to the occasion to put her imperious husband in his place. Sedgwick easily steals the show in a part that jumps out like a pop-up card, and Duvall loads his glances and line readings with amusing doses of scorn and superiority. Her character is center-stage throughout, and a couple of scenes in which she is most unglued, notably in her accusatory salvos at the Charity League and her confused attempt to have revenge sex with an attractive visitor, are effectively comic.Īt other times, Grace is so indecisive and flustered that she is easily upstaged by those around her, especially by her deep-thrusting sister and edict-issuing father. Set in an unidentified Southern community, pic lacks a strong sense of texture and local tradition, although the physical backdrops are uniformly attractive.Īs a vehicle for Roberts, this is a mixed bag. Film takes its own sweet time wrapping things up and doesn’t quite manage to keep every scene lively enough to conceal the dawdling.Īfter the distinctively offbeat “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” this pic marks a turn to the conventional and impersonal for Swedish director Hallstrom. Some completely uninteresting material about Wyly’s horse purchases and who will ride what steed precedes a jumping competition that proves staggeringly uninvolving because nothing at all is at stake the need for Caroline and Wyly to win their respective events feels so peripheral to the rest of the action that it almost seems to belong to another movie.īy the time the picture wends its way back to resolving Grace and Eddie’s domestic dilemma, it becomes clear that it has nothing more original to say on the subject than that only time and a forgiving attitude can mend such wounds. Modest yarn takes an unmotivated detour into “National Velvet” territory in the second half in order to accommodate a lame subplot about the equestrian activities of Grace and Eddie’s daughter, Caroline (Haley Aull). The would-be reconciliation dinner between Grace and Eddie about halfway through suddenly achieves a dramatic emotional depth heretofore unattempted in the script, but this is just as quickly jettisoned in favor of some gross vomit comedy and is never found again. Paralyzingly caustic and direct, Sedgwick’s uninhibited Emma Rae has all the best lines, dishing it out to Eddie whenever he’s around but saving enough ammo for anyone else who might wander into her sights. While licking her wounds back home, the distraught Grace manages to stir up trouble all around, disrupting the Women’s Charity League with a public airing of her colleagues’ extracurricular activities, giving Eddie a “near-death experience” courtesy of a specially spiked fish sauce, and inadvertently informing her mother of Wyly’s own straying, prompting Georgia to kick the lordly Southern gent out of their mansion.Īlthough rather obvious and even crude at times, the central man-woman confrontations have their moments. None of this sits well with her dad, Wyly King (Robert Duvall), the wealthy, authoritarian owner of the snooty King Farms horse-breeding spread, where he lives with his compliant wife, Georgia (Gena Rowlands), and saucy second daughter, Emma Rae (Kyra Sedgwick).
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