Rating: 
Summary: Bret Fetzer -- hope reviews is not his day job
Review: Yes, your editorial reviewer here, Bret Fetzer, claims, "...Though MacDowell isn't a great actress...," and I am wondering why would I ever read a review without checking who wrote it First. I supposed I made a mistake. Thank you Bret! Never vagain will I have to waste my time thinking you might have something worthy of reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Insulting.
Review: Yikes.This movie was entirely the wrong vehicle to explore the absurd tragedy of the Yugoslavian war. The sophomoric writing doesn't engage the audience, it lacks character development (all the characters begin and end on the same level) and doesn't allow us to feel the true struggle the characters should feel -- there are no personal hurdles for the characters to overcome, which unfortunately turns the storyline into a selfish look at one woman's "loss". Another plot problem is that each character in this movie does exactly what they want to. The photographer, Harrison Lloyd (played by David Strathairn), goes to Yugoslavia because he *wants* to take photographs for his magazine. His wife, Sarah (played by Andie MacDowell), gets to Europe, rents a car, finds a guide, gets through military checkpoints, meets up with other journalists, to find Harrison, all without struggle and simply because she *wants* to -- how boring is it to watch characters do what they *want* to do? Several plot holes, too. There's animosity towards Harrison's mother that's never explained. An unbelievable willingness to potentially make orphans of her children when she leaves them starts this film out on shaky ground. Timeline doesn't seem important to the director, and we're never really sure how much time has passed from scene to scene. I'd like to imagine thing was the intent, but I can't. The war scenes in the second half of the movie, however, are gruesome, sickening, necessary, and realistic. Another fault: Sarah never interacts with the people in the war. She ignores those suffering around her; she's a one-dimensional character on her mission to find her husband. MacDowell's character choices weaken her appeal as a love-conquers-all-driven wife and mother. At the end of the film, there's a dedication to the 48 journalists who lost their lives in that war. I can't help but feel insulted that they tacked on such a heavy dedication to a film that is essentially a plain story of a husband and wife set in a surreal. What is missing is a strong script for such a serious subject and a dedication to the people who died in the war, the children who were murdered..., the families that were destroyed, as well as an apology to the survivors of the war for America's lack of action early-on to help prevent Holocaust-level genocide.
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