You've got an actor's powerhouse, featuring Streep, Keaton, and DiCaprio. All have proven that they can emote on screen, that they have the ability to take the words on a page and make you believe their struggle with a look, a sigh, whatever....
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You've got an actor's powerhouse, featuring Streep, Keaton, and DiCaprio. All have proven that they can emote on screen, that they have the ability to take the words on a page and make you believe their struggle with a look, a sigh, whatever. They can at times be overrated but, in this film, they do make it work. There are awkward pauses, distressed looks, real laughs, real fear/desperation, real happiness. Two sisters fail to keep in touch for twenty years because one decides to stay with her ailing father and aunt while the other decides to live her own life. Neither is wrong or bad for their choices and each finds love, not romantic, with their parents and children but each has also found difficulties, frail elderlies and troublesome children. With the introduction of leukemia, the two are brought together again. Streep's character learns to be a little less hard, a bit less selfish (which in my opinion is a natural and normal attribute) and Keaton's a bit more forgiving. It's a sad tale but I suppose human. It's not my favorite film of any of the three but it's interesting nonetheless. I suppose the title is apropos if one realizes how central the father is to these two girls division and then reunion, how Streep's return to the room with medication is a symbol that she will take the baton and "grow" up, face life and her responsibilities. I would have liked to have seen Eve (Keaton's character) be the title but such but there it is.