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Review by Jack Foley |
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DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Audio commentary by the filmmakers; Audio commentary
by Ashley Judd and Callie Khouri; Unlocking the secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood;
Alison Krausse’s music video 'Sitting in the Window of My Room'; Additional
scenes; Ya-Ya Sisterhood scrapbook.
CHICK flick queens, Sandra Bullock and Ashley Judd, team up with an established
ensemble of golden oldies (including Ellen Burstyn and Maggie Smith) for this
overly sentimental melodrama concentrating on the differences between mothers
and daughters.
Intended as a tear-jerker designed to stir the emotions and bring about a
sense of the all-girl bonding displayed so openly on-screen, The Divine Secrets
of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood instead comes across as a cliché-ridden retread
of countless other movies, while trivialising some fairly weighty issues in
favour of hugs and cuddles.
Bullock stars as a successful playwright who invokes the wrath of her eccentric
mother (Burstyn) when she reveals all about her bad childhood in a magazine
interview. The family ‘breakdown’ prompts Burstyn’s lifelong
friends, founder members of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, to abduct the hapless Bullock,
take her back down South and explain to her why Burstyn has become the oddball
wreck she is today.
The story of how mother and daughter fell out is then conveyed in flashback,
as Burstyn becomes reincarnated as Judd, a feisty Southern belle, who slowly
reverts to alcoholism out of love for the one man she can never have.
Cue the handkerchiefs and sighs of sympathy, as Judd’s heartfelt tale
unfolds. Yet as ruthlessly as the movie pulls on the heart-strings, one can’t
help but feel that Judd’s cross is one of her own making and her plight
remains unsympathetic throughout, particularly as the rift deepens when Judd’s
drunken mother resorts to violence to ‘punish’ her daughter.
That everyone is so eager, by the end of the movie, to forgive her (including
her neglected husband, played by James Garner), simply doesn’t ring true,
while the gushing finale is both mawkish and nausea-inducing.
To
be fair to director, Callie Khouri, she does coax some decent performances
from her talented leads, but too much time is given over to Judd’s descent
into personal hell that everyone else plays second fiddle.
The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, for instance, get to reveal very few of their secrets
and are far from divine throughout, while Garner is largely wasted as the
kindly husband and father whose own feelings go ignored.
The movie is fairly crisp and there is the occasional laugh to be had - usually
from Smith’s deadpan wit - but, overall, this is a clumsy, uneven affair
which, by the time the final credits roll, grates.
