Rating: 
Summary: One of my favorite movies in YEARS
Review: I seem to be one of the few women on the planet who had never even heard of the book before this movie came out, and I am a voracious reader. It does give me the opportunity to review the movie on its own merits. I am ordering the books from this esteemed web site, and I'm sure I will deeply enjoy those as well. Experience has taught me it's always best to see the movie first if you can work it that way.I do not remember ever being so emotionally engaged in a movie in my entire life. I was laughing, crying, or both throughout most of the film, exhausted when it was over, and could hardly wait to watch it again. While I have picked up several foreshadowings and other tidbits with repeated viewing, I did not find the flashback format at all difficult to follow. The casting is superb; what an honor to see such a crew all in one place! Get this movie and schedule a slumber party!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Divine
Review: The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a great movie based on the best-selling book written by the author Rebecca Wells. A great cast of Ashley Judd, Sandra Bullock and Ellen Burstyn gives the movie a cheerful and funny mood. The movie is great for mothers, daughters, and friends to share. The plot revolves around real life situations about growing up, falling in love, the hardships of life, and most importantly, the friendship between friends, mothers and daughters. If you want to share laughs with someone you are close with, or just want a great way to spend your night, then watch the Ya-Yas and listen to what they have to say. Ya-Ya!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good effort ... but wish it could have been Great!
Review: IF I had never read the Ya-Ya books by Rebecca Wells, I MIGHT have been able to view this movie on a stand alone basis and been completely satisfied with the several major plot points put forth by the screen writer to portray this huge cast of characters, strung over several generations and many years in the complex extended family swirling around ViVi Abbott Walker. Many of the major cast members were represented by actors as children, young adults and in older versions of adulthood -- not with makeup but with completely different actors in each part.
I am the first to admit that it would have been a gargantuan effort to boil 60 years of living into a two hour movie. The fact that the movie is at all comprehensible says a great deal about the talent of all those involved in it's making. And I commend them for the effort....but.... The saga of the Divine Ya-Ya Sisters should have been a 12 part TV mini-series. That is really the only way to get to "know" these complex people and do justice to the whole Ya-Ya experience. That having been said, how was the movie? I liked it a lot, with reservations. Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Ellen Burnstyn, James Garner, Shirley Knight, Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan and the truly divine Angus MacFadyen anchor the story in place and keep it moving along. The presence of such a "first-rate" cast assures the viewer that this was a serious attempt to tell the story and not just a way to part the viewers from their money at the box office. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood has been a cultural phenomenon for a number of years. Several million readers of the book(s) were excited, delighted and maybe just a little apprehensive to see how the tale would play out on the screen. I can only tell you my opinion but here it is: As a reader of the books, I still had a bit of a time keeping up with the back story and can only wonder whether someone unfamiliar with the clan wouldn't have become hopelessly lost in the twists, turns and flashback format of this version. A few of the plot devices (a red airplane instead of Lawanda the elephant) I understand. Other things left out or changed were a disappointment to me. But for getting a whole complicated story told in under two hours, well, it was a pretty good effort. So it gets 4 stars from me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not As Bad As I Feared It Would Be
Review: I had to watch this thing because it was my wife's birthday. Her book club had read this book and, even though she thought the book was bad -- "Nobody talks like this," she kept saying -- she wanted to see how it had been treated on film. My wife is from Central Louisiana, and she said the accents in the film were deplorable, nobody in Louisiana talks like that. The film wasn't as horrible as I feared it would be... For the most part, it's the tired old story of buried childhood trauma in a dysfunctional family of the Deep South. Ashley Judd was extremely pretty, and made the movie somewhat bearable for a guy to watch without running screaming from the room.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but hard to digest for this Louisiana Native
Review: Ok, I learned my lesson along time ago to not read a book then see the movie. It was so true here. But, being a lover of movies I understand that not everything in a book can be put into film, because we'd all be sitting in the movie theaters for at least 3-4 hours for the really good ones. I was only disappointed because alot of the events that occured in Sidda's childhood that ultimately affected her adulthood and her relationship with her mother, would most likely be to disturbing to the mainstream movie goers who do not freqeuntly watch those made for TV moves that rerun on Lifetime.
However, I did enjoy the fact that I believe another reviewer wrote, that unlike the book where Sidda when she received the scrapbook from her mother in the mail and was left to herself to go through and conjure up the images of the YaYa's activities, in the film Sidda has the living characters there at her disposal to help in explaining and adding the details that make the reconciliation easier to digest on celluloid. Of course the saccharine ending would not have been easily done in the book.
Being from Lousiana and now living in the area of this fine state where Divine Secrets takes place, where ironically my mother's family is from, I assumed I would fall in love with the books and the movie, especially because Sandra Bullock is one of my favorite actresses. Only to my disappointment to find out as the credits rolled that it was filmed entirely in North Carolina. To quote my sister, "What a travesty in the interpretation of Southern Literature!" Louisiana has just as many picturesque locations as those in the film. Our plantation homes and just off the highway "Acadian" homes are as aesthetically pleasing as those in the film as well. Haven't the location scouts seen Man in the Moon with Sam Waterson & Reese Witherspoon?
And don't even get me started on the Louisiana slang the women use. The YaYas frequently use the phrase "petit bebe" (pronounced "pah tee bah bay"), whereas the locals use "cha bebe" pronounced "sha bah bay." I must admit that the use of some British actresses also fluffed my feathers for a moment, but how long can one stay mad at Maggie Smith. I absolutely adore the scene where she's on the phone with Vivi and gives her a smooch goodbye that completely reminds me of when my aunt, mom, sister and I get together and start getting affectionately silly.
Even though it has its flaws, it does a decent job of protraying the relationship of two women with a consedrable past that are able to go beyond it begin anew. As with all things in life, as long as we come out learning something new the world will keep going on.
Rating:
Summary: Divine Soundtrack of Mahalia Jackson is the great Ya Ya !
Review: This rather curious story of the up and down relationship between a long-suffering daughter and an equally pained single mom that find the enduring thread that bonds them together in the end of the movie. that thread was the love that was hiding under the tapestry of a very difficult and tumultuous life of disapointments and setbacks. All of this takes place in the shadow of a small town in Louisiana and fused together by four precocious young girls that set a special club that endures through there entire lives. I must tell all viewers that as engaging a story, as this movie wants to be, there are some things that were best to leave out, such as the part in the movie where the Mom steps on some poo poo. (was this really necessary) But I must say that the movie is fully redeemed at the part where the mother and daughter are souring in the sky in a small, red plane and the soundtrack of the Great Mahalia Jackson belts out the powerful "Walk in Jerusalem" This made the movie come alive and it served as a great crescendo for the climactic ending. beautiful Soundtrack that is really something to Ya Ya about!
Rating:
Summary: A mother-daughter bonding film...
Review: Excellent movie. Mothers and adult daughters should watch it together. It will make you laugh til you cry.
Rating: 
Summary: The Blah Blah Sisterhood
Review: With a cast like this bringing a book like this to screen, I was hopeful that this would be a great movie experieince...and was thoroughly disappointed. The film version was not able to, or just plain didn't, capture the complexities of the characters as a whole. And the acting...Maggie Smith, one of the GREATS, is reduced to Lifetime TV fare with her BAD southern accent. It's a shame to see a woman of this calibur talent wasted so horribly. And Burnstein plays her imbalanced character too over the top to be believable. Bullock isn't challenged much in her role, making her again trapped in a part that makes no use of her screen presence or talents. Overall, rent this movie if you must see it, or better yet, wait until it comes on cable or something...but seeing this movie and paying good money for it are two entirely different things.
Rating: 
Summary: Loved the book; Hated the Movie
Review: While I enjoyed the book, I did not like the movie. The actresses did a commendable job in their roles and were superbly cast, but I felt the movie jumped around too much in an effort to cover what was in the book yet never quite went deep enough to make an impression. Certain things were changed which I disliked immensely, such as Sidalee being kidnapped and forced to stay in the cabin. That was pure Hollywood slapstick schlock. I would have preferred a script more true to the book. With careful editing, the movie could have been as good as the book, but instead it tries to cover too much. And then when changes are made, they do nothing to enhance the film or improve upon the story.
Unlike the great movie "Fried Green Tomatoes", this movie did not capture the flavor of the south. It did not transform me to the Louisiana bayous; instead I felt I was seeing a Hollywood version of what they thought Louisiana was supposed to be.
Don't waste your time buying the DVD. Rent it, then go back to reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful movie
Review: I liked this movie very much. The story is very touching and reminds us that there is often more than meets the eye to our relationships with others. The outstanding actors and the wonderful cajun music make watching this movie a very enjoyable experience.
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