TWO WEEKS (2007)
Starring Sally Field, Ben Chaplin, Tom Cavanagh, Julianne Nicholson, Glenn Howerton, Clea Duvall, James Murtaugh, Michael Hyatt, Susan Misner, Jenny O'Hara and Terrence E. McNally.
Screenplay by Steve Stockman.
Directed by Steve Stockman.
Distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. 102 minutes. Rated R.
The death of a loved one is quite possibly the most personal and devastating experience one can live through.
Two Weeks looks at this intensely vulnerable moment in any family, in which four grown children congregate at their mother's home as she is in the last stages of ovarian cancer.
The mother is played by Sally Field, who gives a brave and heartbreaking performance as a strong woman whose body has failed her — and yet she feels a need to be strong and positive for her children.
The children, unfortunately, are not so well drawn out. They are more like types than actual characters. You have the arty Zen filmmaker (Ben Chaplin), the workaholic executive (Tom Cavanagh), the bratty youngest son (Glenn Howerton) and the spinsterish daughter (Julianne Nicholson) who has stayed with the mother when all the others moved off.
Of course, this film makes a huge tactical error, or maybe it is just the marketing, but they are trying to push this as a comedy-drama. Yes, in tragedy people do find a certain gallows humor to survive, however the gravity of the situation and the specter of the impending death trivializes and blunts most of the family squabbles and light moments.
Still, even though the film is often manipulative and sometimes awkward, having personally lived through a similar experience with my grandmother's death of cancer, I can safely say that they do capture the helplessness and sense of frustration of a family member's slow, steady decline. The scenes detailing the constant decay of Field's last days are sadly all too realistic.
Of course whether or not you want to vicariously experience this loss when you don't absolutely have to is certainly open to debate. If you can withstand that, Two Weeks tells a tragically human story. It's far from perfect, but then again death always is.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2007 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: September 8, 2007.
Commentaires