Marvin's Room
Dir: David Petrarca
1996
**
David Petrarca's cinematic adaption of Scott McPherson's play was largely celebrated on its release and seems to still hold people's admiration. I can understand fans of Leonardo DiCaprio holding it with high regard as they gaze into his boyish blue eyes but for the rest of us I'm not sure there is that much still on offer. Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton are big performers but the script offers them very little. Robert De Nio is also criminally side-lined into an awkward and not particularly funny 'comedy' role. I'm guessing the humour worked really well in the theatre because it sure as hell doesn't in the film. I was neither sad at the emotional scenes, nor did I laugh and the comedy moments. It's terribly sad too that the late great Hume Cronyn was given such an awful role in the first film he made after the death of his wife and the last feature he ever made. I'm afraid I just didn't see the tenderness that was advertised, I could see what was intended but in my opinion this was never achieved.