Review of She's So Lovely (1997) by Rohitashwa S — 07 May 2009

Its sad to see potential go to waste. Especially, when the potential and the originality is so rare, so moving.

The first one hour of the film is a masterpiece, an extraordinary script where nothing much happens and yet everything happens. Sean Penn never fails to surprise, always manages to pluck up something new, and this has to be one of his best performances. Robin Wright is simply brilliant as the yound wife, torn between love and fear, desire and duty, and ultimately between herself and her husband. James Gandolfini puts in a little gem, as he arrives for a short while as the man who attempts a sexual assualt on his neighbourhood house-wive, attempting to lure her with whisky and blues.

Simply, the first half-hour brings on a platter the likes of Woody Allen, Martin Scorscese, even bits of Altman. THe audience starts expecting that the film will lead them to a rare realm of cinematic experience.

But unfortunately for 'She's so Lovely', it stops there, although there are a few stunning dialogues in there as well.

But the problem, the big hole in the entire project is the script. The film ultimately feels like a project on which the people had started working with a script only half-done, with the other half only loosely at the back of their minds.

What should have been a great saga on human frailties turns out to be a slugfest between two men who have been married to the same woman. The ultimate message, although sounds beautiful and sonorous, is way to confused,(She doesn't love you, she doesn't love me, she is de lovely!). The strings fall apart from the script, and fittingly even penn looks at a loss as to what he's supposed to do at that point.

Ultimately, what saves this film is the memorable first half hour, the depth of the chemistry between sean penn and his eventual real-life wife robin wright penn.

A few excerpts - "The world is ruled by seven women and a computer".

Eddie telling his daughter, "I didn't come here for you, I came her for my wife. I didn't marry you.".

And then telling her again, "We can't be best-friends, cause you'll have a lot of best friends throughout your life. But we should be second best-friends. There's only ever one second best friend.".

Watch it for the performances, for the potential. Don't watch it if you have something better to do.