serflood Review of One True Thing

One True Thing (1998)

Even with all the right ingredients in place, it tastes bitter

[5/10 · 21 September 1998]

Renee Zellweger and Meryl Streep both give remarkable performanaces in this oddly off-putting movie. I expected to leave the theater as bleary-eyed as Streep's character was close to her final scenes, but instead felt empty and a bit depressed. In my opinion, for a movie like this to succeed there must be a) characters you warm up to early on, b) enough humor to balance out the extreme morbidity of the plot, and c) a sense that there is some greater reason for sitting through 2 hours of this. One True Thing did not make the case in any of these areas, so I am calling it a failure.