Seeing Moonrise Kingdom, I long for the simple, true, mature love that gets lost amidst the dysfunction in our own lives and in the world around us. But even before we get to that, the film is simply fun from open to close, and just …more »»
Film Talks Tagged ‘Drama’
October Baby (2011)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — March 26, 2012
Who wants you? Who cares if you exist? What are they willing to endure for your existence? October Baby puts such questions into sharp, life-and-death focus. Even more, the film turns the questions …more »»
Once (2007)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — September 20, 2009
Both the music and the story are excellent, and the way they are intertwined notably raises the impact and resonance of the film’s exploration of relationships and reconciliation. The story is thinly told, yet it feels that nothing important is left out. …more »»
Once (2007)
(After viewing)
by Randy Heffner — September 20, 2009
Once strengthened for me the Beauty of relationships and commitment. For a time, Guy and Girl have a wonderful thing going in the music they share and in the smiles and laughs they have together. …more »»
Please Give (2010)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — November 21, 2010
Please Give mixes together an ensemble of stories, mostly about relationships and money. It’s a study in contrasts, with (typically) just enough exaggeration to bring out …more »»
Precious (2009)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — February 16, 2010
Engaging, heart-wrenching, real, and strong, Precious delves deeply into dark places where our need for love collides with poverty — poverty of money, of spirit, of love, and of character. In the midst of the collision …more »»
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — October 14, 2009
Rachel Getting Married is in many ways a hard film to watch because of the numerous angles on family and personal dysfunction that it explores. The film has a unedited-home-video style and meditative tone that one must go with or the film will feel overly long. Still, for …more »»
The Road (2009)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — January 20, 2010
Set in a bleak and barren post-apocalyptic world, The Road intensely and insightfully explores the nature of goodness, hope, and love. How dark can your world get before you lose hope? At what point …more »»
Sarah’s Key (2011)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — August 9, 2011
Sarah’s Key relates a Jewish girl’s experience during a terrible incident of French complicity in the Holocaust, which is indeed a powerful story in itself, yet the true strength of the film (and the novel on which it is based) is in its intertwining of …more »»
The Savages (2007)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — November 8, 2009
The Savages is an unvarnished exploration of family dysfunction and reunion between a father, a brother, and a sister. There are many insightful moments that well capture tenderness, animosity, mistrust, self-hiding, caring, …more »»
The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — July 7, 2009
The legends, mystery, and characters in The Secret of Roan Inish beautifully embody our innate longing for home and how we deal with that longing. The Irish waterscape and the life within it becomes a character, being both lovely and treacherous, passive and with its own active agenda. …more »»
The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
(After viewing)
by Randy Heffner — July 7, 2009
After seeing The Secret of Roan Inish, I sat back and wondered how often I, like Tess (the grandmother), repress my longing for home. I wondered how often I, like Fiona’s father, opt for …more »»
Secretariat (2010)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — October 26, 2010
With an early 70s, down-home southern feel, Secretariat tells more than the story of the greatest ever racehorse. Most centrally, it connects us with the difference between …more »»
A Serious Man (2009)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — February 22, 2010
Have you had those times when nothing in life seems to fit? Times that you want the formula for how things work so you can try to fix them? A Serious Man is about that. But there’s more: watching the film puts you in that …more »»
Seven Days in Utopia (2011)
(Before viewing)
by Randy Heffner — September 20, 2011
Knowing that Seven Days in Utopia is, broadly speaking, from the genre of Christian films might cause some to cheer and some to run. For my part, I take the film on its own terms, letting it build its …more »»
