Tallo de hierro

If you like quality stories and came across this movie by accident, definitely watch it. Personally, I can say that it was one of the pleasant surprises I probably wouldn’t expect from Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. You actually tell yourself that you’ve seen their best flicks on TV a thousand times, but then a forgotten movie emerges and you’re in for a surprise. Both of them play the crazy drunks so ingeniously that I actually forgot how to blink. Yeah, and Jack Nicholson has a really beautiful scene here where he tells one sexually active drunk that he hasn’t had sex for several years and probably doesn’t even know how it is done anymore. I think he really had to force himself to shoot this. He in particular… (22.01.2017)

Maybe you know that situation when you are standing somewhere in the middle of people, you don't have a tissue and you feel that the contents of your nasal cavity long for freedom, and you desperately sniffle and hope that you will manage to discreetly disappear and get rid of the appearing noodle. That's exactly how I felt while watching this drama. By the way, the film ended up as a heavy financial failure and the producer had to deal with a major lack of interest from the audience. The director explained the failure by saying that the American audience did not accept their favorite stars in the roles of failures in life, but in my opinion, the film simply lacks spark. It lacks internal tension, the dialogues don't have the necessary strength, and it also lacks directorial inventiveness. It's just average, and on top of that, it's insanely overlong. If it had an honest and classic 90-minute duration, it would be worth three strong stars even with the above-mentioned flaws considering the burning topic. But the way it is, it's just a dragged-out boredom that a group of festival-goer enthusiasts wants to defend, just as commercially inclined viewers want to defend their favorite genres. Personally, I think that Nicholson's film About Schmidt, which is greatly underrated because of the influence of the mass audience, is at least two levels better. Overall impression: 45%. (14.01.2012)