Thursday Movie Picks: Friendships
1) Water Lilies
This lovely little French film follows three girls who meet at the pool over summer break and the semi-love triangle that forms. There's lots of angst but lots of beauty as well.
2) All The Days Before Tomorrow
Wes and Alison are best friends who probably could've been a couple had the timing been right. Before Alison leaves to move to Japan she and Wes take a trip down memory lane.
3) Driving Lessons
This is a bit of a quirky/dumb comedy but it reunites Rupert Grint and Julie Walters. Ben forms a friendship with Evie when he goes to work for her.
I haven't seen any of these but they sound interesting. I'm definitely giving Driving Lessons a chance.
ReplyDeleteDriving Lessons is fun, and it was amusing at the time to see Rupert Grint dropping F bombs during his HP days.
DeleteI've only seen Driving Lessons which was a minor but pleasant enough movie, but any film with those Grint and Julie Walters plus Laura Linney is worth a look at least.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Water Lilies but not the other. Both sound worth seeking out.
The choices for this week are boundless so I stuck with three faves.
The Women (1939)-Wealthy happily married Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) spends her days in the company of a circle of equally well-heeled women friends whose main distraction is gossiping about each other. The worst offender is Mary’s cousin Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell) a smiling Judas with a vicious streak. When Sylvia finds out at the beauty parlor that Mary’s husband is stepping out on her with a cheap piece of baggage named Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford) she makes sure Mary finds out protesting all the time she’s doing it for her own good. It’s off to Reno and back where new complications await Mary and her buddies both old and new. Witty comedy has an entirely female cast (down to the animals) and great dialog. Musicalized (pleasantly if unmemorably) in the 50’s as The Opposite Sex with Joan Collins stepping in for Crawford and shredded in 2008 with an abysmal redo.
Old Acquaintance (1943)-Serious minded Kit Marlowe (Bette Davis) and flighty Millie Drake (Miriam Hopkins) have been best friends since college. Several years on Kit is now an acclaimed, respected but not terribly profitable authoress while Millie has married and is expecting a child. During a visit Millie confides to Kit that she’s written a book as well, a romance novel, which Kit passes along to her publisher and which becomes an enormous hit followed year after year by one frothy concoction after another making Millie fantastically rich and successful. However Millie remains envious of Kit as her marriage fails and her daughter turns to Kit as a mother figure and their friendship is strained but never breaks. High class soap opera was notorious at the time for the behind the scenes feud between Davis and talented but legendarily difficult Hopkins-a shameless upstager. At one point Davis had to shake Hopkins hard in a scene and when she finished the crew broke into applause!
Beaches (1988)-On the Atlantic City beach in the 50’s child performer CC Bloom (Mayim Bialik) meets lost rich kid Hillary Whitney (Marcie Leeds) and they strike up what turns out to be a deep lifelong friendship as they grow up to be Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. Except for a brief break their kinship endures just about every obstacle under the sun leading to a teary conclusion. Though there is solid work from Lainie Kazan as Midler’s overbearing mother and John Heard as a director both women fall for this is Midler and Hershey’s show and their powerful chemistry carries the movie.
I haven't seen any of your picks, I can definitely cross Beaches off because I can't stand Mayim Bialik lol. I would definitely seek out Water Lilies at least, it was on Netflix at one point. It's a really great film.
DeleteBialik is only in the very beginning of the film where the friendship is established. It moves on to Midler & Hershey pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteGood, because she's the worst lol
DeleteLOVE that shot you used for Water Lilies. I haven't seen it, but you've sold me on it. I haven't seen your second pick either, but I did see Driving Lessons and I remember enjoying it, but not much else.
ReplyDeleteIt's my favorite shot in the entire film. It's a great film you definitely need to see it!
DeleteOh man I haven't seen a single one of your picks 😅 You're giving great recommendations every week like this, my watchlist just grows and grows and grows... 😂 They all sound interesting but Driving Lessons in particular I will definitely check out
ReplyDeleteStory of my life on TMP day. My Netflix queue always grows.
DeleteI've seen bits of Driving Lesson. It was alright. The other 2 films I'm more interested in. I don't like Beaches. I can't stand Blossom as well.
ReplyDeleteWater Lilies is my favorite of the bunch, I can't recommend it enough.
DeleteI haven't seen any of the movies but I'm definitely adding them to my watch list.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy all of them!
DeleteI'm in for all of these, but that last one might be at my first stop. I mean, you said those two magical words:
ReplyDeleteRupert Grint.
I love Rupert Grint too! I still need to watch that Moonwalkers movie he did that's on Netflix.
DeleteI haven't seen any of these either but they all look like interesting picks. I'm always a sucker for French films so I might start there. Though considering my long list, who knows when I get to these. :D
ReplyDeleteDriving Lessons is the only one I've seen. Can't remember much, but I liked it.
ReplyDeleteIt was cute, and nice to see Rupert Grint in something different at the time.
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