Superb movie, great mix of drama, comedy, whimsy, and pathos.
10 February 2010
Warning: Spoilers
It is New York in the spring of 1953. Renée Zellweger as Anne Deveraux comes home to find her husband in his underwear and a young tart in the bed. She huffs off, pulls her two sons out of school, and leaves town. And thus begins the fateful summer that is this story.

Kevin Bacon is her philandering husband, Dan Devereaux, musician and band director, the type of band that plays in clubs in the 1950s, with a cute young female singer at the front. Dan is a boy inside that looks like a grown man.

One of the sons is Logan Lerman as George Devereaux. In a sense he is the narrator of the story. As he tells the audience, it all begins when he shows up at a Cadillac dealership with a wad of money to buy a car. The salesmen are flabbergasted, but it all makes sense when his mother shows up. They needed a new car to leave town.

Anne is one of those elegant 1950s women who doesn't think she should work, and therefore her road trip becomes one to find a suitable husband, one who can support her. The summer is filled with surprises, and that is what makes this movie so interesting, we never quite know what the next surprise is.

Really good, interesting movie, one of the better ones I have seen lately.

SPOILERS: Anne and the two sons end up in Los Angeles and, to make ends meet become extras in movie production. The "other" son gets a chance at acting but when George returns from his father's funeral, begins to show his brother how to read the lines in a more believable manner. He is noticed, and he gets the part, while the brother gets into costume design, what he really wants to do anyway. And, George decides to use his father's real last name, Hamilton. This is based on the real George Hamilton.
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