Love Liza

Rating:
Summary: beautiful
Review: A beautiful story of the human condition, grief, suffering, and comical idiosynchracies in each of us (brought out especially through suffering). Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance was amazing. I was deeply moved by the film and did not find it depressing. I found it to be very emotionally rich and real. A beautiful character movie and love story.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Film
Review: A movie which is faithful to human pain, anguish and sorrow.

Rating:
Summary: DRAMA OR COMEDY?
Review: After Wilson's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wife commits suicide he struggles down a long path of grief and remorse. One morning Wilson finds a letter she apparently put underneath his pillow before her death but he is reluctant to open it. He turns to his mother-in-law (Kathy Bates) for support and she persuades him to open the letter but he continues to refuse. Instead he carries the letter with him everywhere he goes. In order to control the pain and sorrow Wilson begins sniffing gas fumes and he becomes fascinated with remote control model airplanes and speedboats. His life seems to spiral down a path that gets darker by each day.

There are many instances when LOVE LIZA walks the thin line between being a drama or being a comedy. Some scenes were full of sorrow but at the same time were comical. In an interview screenwriter Gordy Hoffman said that he did not intend to make a comedy but along the way LOVE LIZA is an honest story of loss. This amounts to often awkward moments of laughter, as it is generally not customary to laugh at other's pain. Personally I did not really enjoy these awkward moments of laughter. I thought the jokes were disheartening and felt many moments of feeling uncomfortable watching and hearing other people laugh in the audience. LOVE LIZA is a good movie in itself, but it could have been better without the comedic element. Regardless, Philip Seymour Hoffman has a wonderful talent for acting and I always enjoy seeing him perform.

Rating:
Summary: ALEXS CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS
Review: Highlights: Yet another incredible performance from Phillip Seymour Hoffman; poignant script; darkly hilarious moments; good maintaining of a pessimistic atmosphere.

Lowpoints: It is evident that it's the director's, Todd Luiso's, debut - the film seems to avoid subjects that get excessively intricate, and bombards the audience with pompous, supposedly meaningful subtlety - in other words, Love Liza is pretentious at times; the film supplies its audience with no resolution, though foreshadows one throughout, which might leave some agitated; Love Liza's perpetual pessimism might upset viewers.

Conclusion: Though ostentatious at certain points, Love Liza is a worthy little addition to any indie DVD collection. It will dazzle with its central performance, and astound with some incredibly nuanced scenes.

SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED: Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, Wings of Desire, About Schmidt.
DON'T SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED: Maid in Manhattan, any Julia Roberts film.

Rating:
Summary: Hoffman is fine, the movie is hit and miss.
Review: Hoffman's character lost his wife to suicide recently. He can't bring himself to make up the bed they slept in, and when he does, he discovers the note she left him. He doesn't want to read it, nor does he want to share it with his mother-in-law. Hoffman plays a computer programmer here, and his grief affects his work, and his relationships there. Coming home from a practically forced-on-him holiday, he adds to his misery by becoming attracted to gas-huffing, and the effects of doing so. His employer, who has a bad-timing crush on him, tells him on an attempted home-visit that his place reeks of fuel. He hastily explains this is because of his toy-plane hobby, and in an attempt to both overcome his mood and cover up his fabrication, buys toy planes. Into his life comes a fellow who is related to his employer, a toy-plane and boat enthusiast. This chap is aware of Hoffman's difficulties, and tries hard to break him out of his increasing gas-induced stupor by taking him on little excursions, or explaining Hoffman's odd behavior to confused onlookers. Meanwhile, the mother-in-law is hell bent on reading her daughter's letter, as she feels her son-in-law is ducking an enormous responsibility, as well as keeping himself in a wallowing depression by not reading what was meant for his eyes. This drama was high on my list of things to see when I first read about it. When I did, I must say I was a little disappointed. The acting is first rate all around, no problem there. The dialogue isn't bad, either, fairly natural and affecting. The scenes between Hoffman and his cute employer at the Zoo, where she tells him of her affection for him, and his subsequent confusion and sudden exit, is touching. However, the gas-huffing scenes take up far too much time which could have been spent on character development; the toy-plane and boat scenes are abruptly cut off and forgotten part-way through, so that subplot goes nowhere. Hoffman's character loses his grip on reality as the huffing robs him of his friends, his livelihood, his mother-in-law's sympathies, etc. When the note is finally read, rather than explaining to the audience what was going through that young woman's head, we are left hanging at what was written, and then the film ends on a bizarre note (no pun intended,) immediately after. This film is possibly a little too close to reality to be as involving or interesting it should have been. It is rather dreary, somber, and at times, un-attractive. Perhaps that is this film's main appeal, that it isn't Hallmark happy/sweet like typical Hollywood films usually are when dealing with issues like this movie tries to tackle. It is unfortunately less colorful and enriching than I'd hoped for, however.

Rating:
Summary: A film unafraid to take risks with a difficult subject
Review: I like this movie for what it tries to be and for its willingness to take big risks with a subject that audiences don't like to deal with -- grief. It is somehow unAmerican to linger long with feelings of loss. A whole grief counseling industry has sprung up around our need to achieve "closure" when someone we love dies. We are impatient with the person who makes us uncomfortable with their inability to get on with living, even replacing the lost loved one with someone new. This movie wants us to look at the deep emotional dislocation that death can bring, most especially when that death is the suicide of someone close to us.

When the young widower in the film takes to inhaling gasoline fumes, he not only dulls the pain of his grief, but the slack, dazed expression on his face becomes the mask of grief itself. It suggests something of the overwhelming power of grief, to render us numbly out of touch with the rest of the world and beyond the entreaties of others who can't or won't understand. And like an addiction, grief can lead to behavior that looks irrational, impulsive and obsessive.

You have to give this movie credit for tackling this subject without cliches or sentimentality. Hoffman's performance captures the total haplessness of a man in the grip of deep grief -- even to the extent of letting us see his behavior as near farcical. His sudden interest in motor-driven model planes brings him into the world of flying enthusiasts, who are as single-mindedly obsessed with their planes as he is by his grief. The wonky friend who takes him to a weekend meet is a comic version of himself -- unaware of his own self-absorbed quirkiness.

The dead wife's mother (Kathy Bates, who can do no wrong) somehow deals with her daughter's death without going to pieces. She represents the audience's sensible acceptance of death and does what we expect, bravely soldiering on, even possessing the energy and will power to continually try pulling her son-in-law "back to his senses." And I think the film actually wants us to wonder how she does this -- how she manages to escape from the valley of the shadow of death.

Having continued downward in his spiral, losing a job for a software project he never begins, the main character eventually opens the suicide note left behind by his wife, signaling a step toward resolution. The note, of course, sheds little or no light on the reasons for her death and seems even indifferent to the devastating impact that it will have on her husband. The film ends as he "crashes and burns," and it's difficult to read the closing image as a step back from the brink or over the edge.

This is not going to be many people's idea of entertainment, although there are moments that are dramatically compelling or enjoyable for their unexpectedness. The performances are fine (Hoffman just never ceases to amaze me), and the script plays against movie conventions by being nicely unpredictable. Still, it requires patience and a stomach for difficult material. I recommend this one for those who want to take a risk on a risk-taking movie.

Rating:
Summary: A tragic comedy
Review: I really enjoyed this movie, but it was difficult at times for me to watch. It involves a character named Wilson Joel, played by Hoffman, and his inability to deal with his wife's recent demise by means of suicide. He finds a letter left to him by his wife, presumably a suicide note, but is unable to find the strength to open it and read the letter. Instead, he carries it around with him, maybe as a link to his wife, but also seeming to lack the courage to open the letter and see what his wifes last thoughts were. He starts a slow, downward spiral as he becomes addicted to huffing gas, or taking a rag soaked with gasoline and putting up to his mouth and nose, deeply inhaling the fumes as a means to escape reality.

Problems start developing when he starts having difficulty hiding this habit, and at one point he makes up a lie about being involved in radio control (RC) planes to cover the gas smell in his house. A friend introduces Wilson to Denny, played by Jack Kehler, who is a true RC buff and they develop a tenuous friendship. Wilson gloms on to Denny and his passion for RC, and the scene where they meet up at a RC competition is really very funny.

Anyway, Wilsons' life keeps going sour due to his avoidance of the inevitable, and we're along for the ride. His career, along with whatever personal relationships he has start to deteriorate. The scenes where Wilson huffs the gas from the rags were pretty hard for me to watch, as they made me somewhat queasy. There are some genuinely funny scenes, but ultimately this is one man's sad decent into his own person hell. I thought Kathy Bates character as Wilson mother in law was quite good.

This movie is not for everyone, as there are quite a few questions that never get answered, but then life can be like that.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant portrayal of loss and dispair
Review: I'm not sure how or why the other two reviewers missed the point of the movie. Hoffman is simply brilliant as Wilson, a young man trying to cope with everyday life after his wife kills herself less than 3 weeks earlier. She left a note, which Philip Seymour Hoffman finds but struggles to work up the courage to open and read. His newfound addiction to 'huffing' gas only adds to his inability to handle work, his friends, or doing anything other than getting high. If you like Philip Seymour Hoffman in his other depressing work (Happiness), you'll see that he's become a master of the role.

Yes, there are moments of uncomfortable laughter, but that doens't make Love Liza a comedy. Its not. Its a very depressing, yet wonderfully acted, film. The dialog was natural -- which is to say that it was simple, confused, and sometimes directionless -- exactly how you would expect an addicted, young man coping with the suicide of his wife would be.

Kathy Bates is excellent as the mother of the deceased, trying to cope with her loss as well. She battles with Hoffman, trying to be supportive, yet urging him to open the letter, hoping to find some answers to why her daugter killed herself.

This is a brilliant film, with Philip Seymour Hoffman at his absolute best. But if anyone suggests that this is a "dark comedy" - beware. There is no comedy here. Unless you think coping with the loss of your wife is funny.

Rating:
Summary: Existentialism or Self-Indulgence?
Review: It is really, really difficult to know what to make of this film. On the one hand, it is a decent, honest, and well-acted character study of a man whose life spins out of control despite his best (?) efforts after his wife commits suicide. On the other hand, it can come off at times as a self-indulgent pity-party that you can't help but wonder why you are watching. As extreme as these two 'takes' are, the film is both of them.

I won't be saying anything that hasn't been said when I tout Philip Seymour Hoffman's gut-wrenching portrayal of the protagonist; he conveys the loneliness and, one might say, futility that our main character, Wilson, must feel. Equally strong is Kathy Bates' portrayal of Wilson's mother in law - a woman trying both to come to terms with her daughter's suicide and her son-in-laws increasingly dangerous and irratic behavior. Together, these two alone make the film a good overall effort.

But then there is the script and story. If all the above sounds unduly depressing, that is because it is. Now, dark films tend to work best when (a) you get to know the characters enough to care about them and (b) there is at least some bright spots or redeeming moments in the film. This film, I'm sorry to say, has neither quality. In fact, the major flaw seems to be that by the end of the film, we know precious little about Wilson and nothing about his deceased wife and their relationship. By the end, one can't help but wonder why, without having been provided any info on these characters by way of 'backstory,' we were supposed to care so much about them - obviously the intent of the film all along.

As I tend to be a sucker for downtrodden films like this one, I came away liking "Love Liza" more than not. However, this is a film that I would literally be embarassed to show any of my friends because, in the end, it is simply a bit TOO dark and, if I may be so bold, lacking in tact or message.

But I will give the film three stars, on the condition that, as other reviewers have stated, the prospective viewer knows what they are getting themselves into. If you liked films like 'Leaving Las Vegas,' and more recently, 'House of Sand and Fog,' then there is a chance that you will take to 'Love Liza' as well. (If you didn't enjoy those filsm, this one isn't for you). Just keep in mind that even the darkest of movie-lovers may, in the end, find the onslaught of this film, combined with its lack of depth, a bit too much in the end. So we ask ourselves: "Is it existentialism, or self-indulgence?"

Rating:
Summary: Seymour Hoffman's first Major Role is Perfect!
Review: It is safe to say that Philip Seymour Hoffman is one if not the best character actors today. I've been waiting for him to get a major role, and finally it has arrived. In a scrip written by his brother, Philip plays a man who is dealing with his depression over losing his wife in a suicide. Hoffman can portray grief better than any actor I've ever known. Subtly, and tastefully. The screenplay is good, although you can tell that Philip's brother is new to writing screenplays, because there are a few minor problems, the biggest being the fact that Kathy Bate's character clears out all belongings in Philip's house and takes them over to her house in a short time. This seemingly impossibility was noticed by the Hoffman brothers, but they could think of no better way to better portray her wanting Hoffman to see that he "had everything".
The main reason to go see this movie though is for Hoffman's brilliant performance. He gets inside the role, and acts the hell out of it. Kathy Bates and his chemistry works so well, and his emotion is out on his sleeve as you see him revert to a stage of childhood after losing his loved one. Go see it!