Review of Hope Floats (1998) by Spencer S — 06 Dec 2011

An airy, nothing kind of film, which is always trying to be more than it is. You go in thinking itâ(TM)s some flouncy Sandra Bullock vehicle, where she can be her goofy self while falling in love with the handsomest of men on the planet.

Instead of being a romantic comedy it's more of a character study of a bereaved woman who is ridiculed and belittled after suffering public embarrassment. The beginning, when we're first introduced to Birdee, a divorced single mother who moves home after being humiliated by her husband and his lover, itâ(TM)s actually quite moving and sweet.

Though the daughter is an intimate character, and a look into the true psychological faculties of a girl her age, the rest of the family and the husband are ridiculous caricatures. Watching the daughter and wife interact, it was hinted that the husband was this deeply flawed character, but he has all the parameters of some nothing villain.

Gena Rowlands is a hard hearted eccentric who's only there to thrust Bullock's struggles to the surface. Though I enjoyed what she brought to the film as a character, using her as a plot point further on was despicable.

The other kid, a boy who likes to act as things, didn't have enough backstory with his no good mother to render a specific response except distaste. Though his antics and tendency to keep silent were perfectly odd and childlike, I would have liked to see a broader side of him.

The movie altogether is schmaltz. What she has to overcome and the way she does it is small stuff, an amalgamation of every other drama of this genre, or of that decade. There is so much someone can do with the breakup of a marriage, but they looked solely on the aftermath though that's not what the movie was trying to accomplish.

Look at Blue Valentine and tell me it's hard to make a film that's complex but relates to an ordinary occurrence.