She's So Lovely

The film -- florid, excessive, brash -- owes its success to bravura performances by Sean Penn as Eddie, Robin Wright Penn as Maureen and John Travolta as Joey, the third leg of a triangle. The three play their parts with an abandon that keeps the film buoyant and luminous. Most of all, these three superb actors give us permission to enjoy the film's terribly flawed characters rather than to judge them. [29 Aug 1997]

The late Mr. Cassavetes directed a film called A Woman Under the Influence. This is a powerful variation on that theme -- a woman tossed every which-way, physically and emotionally. [29 Aug 1997, p.A]

The script, written 20 years ago by the late, great director John Cassavetes, still packs an emotional wallop. [21 Mar 1998]

She's So Lovely does not depict choices most audiences will condone, or even understand, but the film is not boring, and has the dread hypnotic appeal of a slowly developing traffic accident (in which we think there will probably be no fatalities). Read full review

She's So Lovely isn't a flawless production, but it's a fitting tribute to John Cassavetes, and a reminder of the many ways that a woman can be under the influence. Read full review

Considering that most movies, even today, don't present a woman's romantic or sexual behavior in anything other than a spirit of judgment, She's So Lovely has to be regarded as something unique. Read full review

At once grittily realistic and hopelessly romantic, She's So Lovely walks a fine line between artiness and pretension, and to its credit, it seldom falters. Read full review

In all, She's So Lovely is second-best Cassavetes but still one of late summer's more adventurous releases, helped by strong performances from its talented stars and from the great Rowlands in a minor role. Read full review

The film has been clobbered with complaints: John Cassavetes, Rowlands and their frequent co-star Peter Falk would have played these roles better; the script is old hat; the improvisatorial style smacks of self-indulgence masked as raw truth. Blah, blah, blah. The detractors should shut up and drink their beer or at least accept She’s So Lovely for what it is: a gift. Read full review

Re-creating that ensemble buzz and that alcoholically fueled soul scraping is an almost impossible task, but in She’s So Lovely, director Nick Cassavetes, working from an unproduced script by his old man (who died in 1989), gives it a ballsy go. Read full review

Nick Cassavetes, like his father, works out his movies through the instincts of the actors, not the camera lens. It's a fitting, and occasionally fitful, eulogy to an unheralded legend. [29 Aug 1997, p.3]

An offhanded, dizzy tale of uncompromising love in a wobbly world. Its main characters often can't see or stand up straight, but they never lose sight of that one person who occupies their hearts. [29 Aug 1997, p.A]

John Cassavetes walked a jagged knife-edge of improvised drama, a high-stakes game of chicken with the actors and with chance itself. But Nick Cassavetes plays it safer, sometimes reducing existential heroes to sentimental cartoons. Still, She's So Lovely has plenty of great stuff: original, realistic gunplay, fearlessly unglamorous acting and one excellently hairy hairpin turn in the story. [29 Aug 1997, p.23]

The beat-up poetry, soused look and bad habits of She's So Lovely are often dated. The showy bravado is not. Read full review

Director Cassavetes may want to cut back on the slow-motion stuff, but he's unquestionably a talent. Read full review

If you're in the right frame of mind -- a sort of anything-goes, Elmore Leonard spirit -- this thing's going to be your kind of evening. Read full review

Not really a Cassavetes movie, but worth seeing anyway. Read full review

She's So Lovely means to be a parable of the inextricability of mad love and madness, a longtime obsession of the elder Cassavetes. Only in Penn's performance does it begin to grasp its elusive goal. [29 Aug 1997, p.03]

She's So Lovely works best as an actors' showcase. The ordinarily reserved Robin Wright Penn goes through a transformation not unlike Mia Farrow's complete makeover in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose; she's never been brassier or funnier. [29 Aug 1997]

Writer John Cassavetes wants to show that there’s nothing like the purity of first love, but he doesn’t provide his triangle sufficient psychological motivation to ground their otherwise erratic behavior. The script feels incomplete, and is further marred by a missing third act and a lack of discernible point of view. Read full review

In essence, the artistic failure of She's So Lovely is traceable to a single, supremely ironic fact: For a story by a writer with so much professed faith in the power of truth to bubble up out of apparent chaos, there's hardly anything here that feels recognizably true. Read full review

When the chemistry isn't there - and it mostly isn't - the actors and film seem merely self-indulgent, despite the obvious devotion with which She's So Lovely was made. [29 Aug 1997, p.C3]

Like a lot of the elder Cassavetes' work, She's So Lovely contains moments of truly fine acting, its characters are all sharply drawn, and its story never seems to go anywhere. [29 Aug 1997, p.5G]

The second half, picking up 10 years after Eddie was institutionalized, is pure screwball comedy. It's as if Cassavetes had written the first half for himself to direct, and the second for Carl Reiner. [29 Aug 1997, p.F10]

if son Nick's adaptation isn't in the same league with Faces or A Woman Under the Influence, he also can't be accused of dropping the ball: He's just not experienced enough to overcome the structural weaknesses of a sporadically brilliant piece of writing. Read full review

She's So Lovely comes from a story by John Cassavetes, who specialized in character studies of amiable lowlifes. Director Nick Cassavetes, his son, has lovingly framed a picture around John's idea, even crediting his dad (who died eight years ago) with the screenplay. But the movie remains an idea - a little idea. [29 Aug 1997, p.7E]

It definitely seems attractive on paper, what with a sterling cast to gaze upon, a script by none other than the late and legendary John Cassavetes, along with direction courtesy of the legend's son Nick. But up on the screen, under the glare of the lights, the film never really captures our eye or our interest. [29 Aug 1997, p.D3]

Harry Dean Stanton provides some much needed humour, but the film's celebratory attitude towards a dangerously wild love that defies logic and convention lacks depth and genuine insights. Read full review

A movie that only a father could love -- father being the late John Cassavetes, credited with Lovely's script. [29 Aug 1997]

This movie isn't just stupid, it's offensive in its stupidity. Read full review