I, like Kimberly, by chance caught this movie on television about 5 years ago. I cried at the end and kicked myself in the head repeatedly for not taping it !! I have since been searching high and low for a copy of it only to learn today that it is FINALLY available on DVD! I was ecstatic to learn this and am ordering my copy immediately. The characters are realistic, you find yourself feeling what they are feeling. It is a hauntingly beautiful love story which brought me to tears. I highly recommend it. Ladies,(or gentlemen?)if you are feeling sentimental about someone, rent or buy this film, pop open a good Merlot or other libation, press "play" and enjoy!!!You will not be disappointed!!!
Probably Laura Linney's Finest Perfomance on Film
LOVE LETTTERS has been on making the boards of theaters large and small across the United States (and translated into many languages and performances throughout the world!) since A.R. Gurney first wrote it in 1989. It is still a popular theater piece for actors from film who want to have public exposure on the stage, for benefits, for young actors in training. Why? Because it is an unassuming, interesting easy to perform in reading fashion by just two actors on a small stage, ultimately fine exploration of the variations love has in the periods of each of our lives. It is unpredictable, clever, well written and very meaningfully tender.
In this teleplay, revised for television screens in 1999 by A.R. Gurney, Stanley Donen directs this fleshed-out performing version with a cast that would be difficult to better. Simply stated, this is a epistolary love story that begins when Andy meets Melissa in second grade and progresses through their very different lives (art school, Yale, Vietnam, alcoholism, divorces, politics, affairs, etc) until Melissa ultimately dies (we know this from the opening scene so this is NO spoiler!).
The technique of mixing actual interaction between the two characters with remembered responses works very well. Part of the reason this small play becomes important is the extraordinary performance by Laura Linney as Melissa. The breadth of her characterization is richly detailed, subtle, vulnerable, and wholly credible. Steven Weber as Andy takes a while to warm to his character (the more difficult of the two with whom to identify) but in the end he gives his best work to date.
This is really a fine little movie, interrupted only by the obvious splices of time where commercials were probably inserted in the original television version. It flows naturally and never ceases to hold your attention and your heart as it is lovingly enacted by Linney and Weber. Grady Harp, February 2005
A true love story
I caught the last hour of this movie on television completely by accident. I am an ardent letter writer..so as soon as I figured out the plot, I was hooked. The characters themselves catch you..you need to know what happens to them. This movie does not have what I would consider the typical hollywood love ending. Everything is not perfect, and you ache from it. The actors make you feel what they are feeling. The love, hate, indifference, and fear. I would recommend this movie to everyone. Honest.
A May-December romance turns metaphysical in P.S., from the director of the critically acclaimed Roger Dodger. Louise (Laura Linney, You Can Count On Me, Kinsey) has a warm friendship with her ex-husband and a satisfying position as an admissions officer for Columbia University, but she's never gotten over losing her first love from high school. When a young man with the same name, face, and artistic talents (Topher Grace, Traffic) as her lost love suddenly arrives for an admissions interview, Louise tumbles into an abrupt and questionable relationship. P.S. is at its best when it follows the tics and foibles of human behavior; Linney and Grace both give vivid, lively performances. But every time reincarnation rears its head, the movie flounders,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Laura Linney - Topher Grace - Marcia Gay Harden Director(s): Dylan Kidd DVD Release Date: Released the 08 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.94 Your Price: $17.95YOU SAVE $1.99!
Buy it
You Can Count On Me starts with a terrible car crash that instantly orphans a little boy and his older sister. At film's end, that boy, now a grown-up nomad and ne'er-do-well, takes off by Greyhound after a brief reunion with his sister, who lives at permanent anchor in their unspoiled hometown. The sibling saga that unreels between wrenching collision and bittersweet separation celebrates the idiosyncratic ways wounded folk like Terry (Mark Ruffalo) and Sammy (Laura Linney) put one foot in front of the other, both energized and hamstrung by the knowledge that nothing is ever certain in the road-movie of life. During his visit, Terry roils Sammy's becalmed existence, mostly by "fathering"--for good and ill--her overprotected 8-year-old (Rory Culkin), sneaking him out to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Laura Linney - Matthew Broderick Director(s): Kenneth Lonergan DVD Release Date: Released the 26 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
Jeff Bridges demonstrates once again that he is one of the finest actors in film. Ted Cole (Bridges, Seabiscuit, The Big Lebowski), a successful writer/illustrator of children's books, invites a young student named Eddie (Jon Foster) to be his assistant for a summer. Eddie doesn't realize he's being drawn into the middle of a dissolving marriage until Ted's wife Marion (Kim Basinger, L. A. Confidential) invites him into an affair--which Ted both condones and resents. Slowly, Eddie comes to understand the secrets that are tearing the marriage apart. Bridges never shows off; everything he does seems simple, natural, almost unavoidable, but it's also utterly watchable. Whether you like the movie will depend on whether you like John Irving (The Door in the Floor is... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jeff Bridges - Kim Basinger - Jon Foster Director(s): Tod Williams DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $4!
Buy it
Few movies offer as intimate a portrait of a fragmenting marriage as We Don't Live Here Anymore. Jack (Mark Ruffalo, You Can Count on Me) and Terry (Laura Dern, Citizen Ruth) are best friends with Edith (Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive) and Hank (Peter Krause, HBO's Six Feet Under)--but Edith and Jack, frustrated with their own marriages, have fallen into an affair that gradually erodes all of their lives. Most movies pretend their sex scenes are really about the characters' emotions; in this case, it's true. The movie's greatest strength, however, is that it's as much about parents and children as husbands and wives; the children of both marriage are as caught up in the events as the adults, and are often more clear-eyed about it all. The whole cast turns... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mark Ruffalo - Laura Dern - Peter Krause - Naomi Watts Director(s): John Curran (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $13.47YOU SAVE $6.51!
Buy it
I just love this movie. I saw it first on the Hallmark Channel when I was channel surfing, then I purchased the DVD. Each time I've watched it, I find I like it more and more. However, I would have loved to have seen more story/character development and a little more romance, perhaps even a wedding between Tyler & Jordan (reason for 4 & not 5 stars). For instance, the scene outside the barn after Tyler has turned away & ran from Jordan, he says ".. I never expected this" It's not clear at first exactly what it is he wasn't expecting. You realize later that he never expected to fall in love with her. Would be great if a sequel follows!??? More Info about this DVD Director(s): David S. Cass Sr. DVD Release Date: Released the 27 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $5.98 Your Price: $5.98YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
