Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Where the Heart Is

. . . or Isn’t, as the case may be. Usually reliable John Boorman goes a little soft in the head while working with a script from his daughter, about dad Dabney Coleman, a demolition tycoon who kicks his kids out of the nest and into a quirky old Dutch house in Brooklyn, which he’s stuck with when landmark status blocks his plan to build an office tower. Uma Thurman is one of the kids but this was clearly before she learned how to act, and the others are siblings mainly in vapidity. Joanna Cassidy and Christopher Plummer are insultingly wasted in embarrassing roles. Meant as a socially-conscious farce about communal creativity vs. capitalist disfunction, this is more irksome than quirky, though it has its moments visually. (1990, dvd, n.) *5-*

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