Something to Talk About

Something to Talk About, which is something to see, makes us a delectable present of its own bright, brawling little world: wisecracks, venomous Charity Leagues, horse shows, last dances, skeleton-filled closets and all. [4 Aug 1995, p.C2]

Quaid is just right as the guilty husband who somehow becomes the wounded party. Read full review

Like all of Hallstrom's American films, "Something to Talk About" has a distinct European "feel," and is less interested in being a star vehicle for Roberts than a freewheeling ensemble piece that balances her in every scene with strong supporting work from Quaid, Duvall, Rowlands and especially Sedgwick.

For the most part this is a pleasing, polished affair, honest enough to steer a compassionate middle course without succumbing to caricature or conservative sentimentality. Read full review

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy. Read full review

The ending is still pat, with lots of reasons for optimism, but "Something" is not as neatly—or falsely—resolved as most Hollywood films. Halstrom may be a cornball and a softy at heart, but he allows real hurt, real betrayal and real healing into his movie. Read full review

At times director Lasse Hallstrom lets the film slip into an upscale version of Brett Butler’s Grace Under Fire sitcom. Even when melodrama threatens, Roberts’ steadying, sharply observed performance keeps things touchingly real. Khouri’s script has the buoyant wit to deal with Grace’s anger without turning her into a lethal avenger. Read full review

Something to Talk About is one of the summer's very few adult movies, and while it's flawed and meanders into slackness, it also offers kinds of rewards few studio movies do. [4 Aug 1995, p.49]

It is also to Khouri's credit that she has written a movie that begins with the men on Mars and women on Venus and ends with their being able to share a planet. [4 Aug 1995, p.03]

Something to Talk About is like a slow-simmering stew, the kind that flavors familiar ingredients with special herbs and spices. Those spices surely accomplish wonders, but underneath it all you are left with the usual culinary suspects. Read full review

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of this film is its lack of tidy closure. As in life, compromises are reached and battles continue. Read full review

Unlike much of Roberts' previous work, it's a movie about characters, not high concept, and it requires her to do more than make cute faces and flash her dazzling grin. [4 Aug 1995, p.4G]

Yet what is most impressive about the movie are the odd notes of grace it provides its ostensible villains. [4 Aug 1995]

Somewhere around the middle of Something to Talk About, I stopped believing or caring about the people on the screen. Almost imperceptibly, the movie's engaging characters and sharp dialogue slipped into artificiality, betraying themselves as puppets of a movie forcing them toward a predetermined outcome that doesn't quite mesh with their established reality. Up to that point, the movie had been a lot of fun. [4 Aug 1995, p.C1]

Something to forget about. In this painfully contrived comedy of Southern manners, Julia Roberts's waning star power finally winks out. Read full review

Imperfect, and ultimately facile though it is, Hallstrom's newest cinematic love letter to his adopted country makes for better-than-average viewing in a summer that has been anything but kind to romantic comedy. [4 Aug 1995, p.L29]

It's rambling and unfocused, but still fresh enough to break the usual Hollywood mold. Read full review

Tack on a jarringly upbeat coda that looks like the kids at the studio demanded a ”happily ever after” ending before they would agree to put the picture to bed, and Something to Talk About becomes a safe, generic family story of no particular personality. Read full review

Part comedy of manners, and mostly gender warfare, "Something" is designed to get the partisan juices boiling. Screenwriter Callie Khouri, who wrote the marvelous "Thelma & Louise," has a gift for catching the oppression of women in everyday situations and putting a sanguine comic twist on it. But in her zeal to portray a world full of male scum, she creates a morally mismatched, pandering scenario. Read full review

As light comedy, Something to Talk About has some effective moments - including Eddie's interview with a hilariously cynical divorce lawyer, and virtually all the scenes with Sedgwick's Emma Rae. But director Lasse Hallstrom glazes the film with too much faux bluegrass music, and the equine fantasy-world of the King Ranch is so enveloping that it suffocates all aspirations to more serious drama. Read full review

Something to Talk About never goes bad, though it does get corny in places, and it hits a couple of dull patches near the finish. The last half-hour contains two completely different scenes involving two completely different horseback riding contests. Yet despite the braying insistence of the sound track, the audience doesn't care about either one. Read full review

Robert Duvall does far from his best job here. His is basically a "mail it in" performance, but, considering the script he's working from, it's no wonder. Something to Talk About is weary -- every ounce of energy and originality has long since been wrung out of this formula, and the "twist" of having the leads already married doesn't do much to spice up things. Ultimately, this "something" turns out to be nothing much at all. Read full review

Something to Talk About goes wrong when it allows its agenda to interfere with the integrity of its characters. Duvall, Roberts and Quaid strive to humanize their characters, only to be undone with narrative detours that strain credibility. Kyra Sedgwick has a more rewarding, better defined role as Grace's smart-aleck sister. The movie also falters when it turns away from relationships and toward a limp subplot about a show-jumping contest. It ain't exactly "Rocky," but it does introduce us to the movie's only sympathetic male character. A gelding. [4 Aug 1995, p.37]

Unfortunately, the diverse elements introduced here don’t coalesce into a comfortable package, with much of the background action proving notably listless and unconvincing. Read full review

That epilogue suspiciously looks tacked-on by Warner Bros., who did the same thing with Roberts in The Pelican Brief when the climax was too downbeat. Just one more anti-climactic chance to see Roberts flash that halogen-bulb smile, even though it thoroughly contradicts what preceded it. It leaves a bad taste, and one realizes that it's the same old tainted salmon Hollywood has been serving for years. Somewhere, Thelma and Louise are gagging. [4 Aug 1995, p.8]

How bad is Something to Talk About? Well, it's not the worst movie I've seen this year, but it is the biggest waste of talent. [4 Aug 1995, p.18]

Roberts, perhaps the nation's most fresh-faced actress five or six years ago, now seems to be a pair of tear ducts mounted atop a thousand-watt smile. Whether anything is going on behind that assembly remains to be seen, but there's not much proof here. [4 Aug 1995, p.1F]

It's difficult to give a damn about this collection of whiners, autocrats and philanderers. [4 Aug 1995]